Expressing Condemnation of the Chinese Communist Party's Persecution of Religious Minority Groups

Floor Speech

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Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I rise today to speak about a grave matter and a clear violation of religious freedom, human dignity, and the rule of law.

In China, Christians are fighting daily for their religious freedom against the Chinese Communist Party. And on October 10, 2025, the Chinese Communist Party launched the largest coordinated nationwide crackdown in more than four decades against a Christian urban house church in China.

In that sweep, 23 pastors and church members of the Zion Church, one of China's largest underground congregations, were arrested and wrongfully detained, including Pastor Ezra Jin.

Pastor Jin and the members of the Zion Church were not engaged in violence. They were worshiping. They were serving God. And for that action, they are being treated as enemies of the communist state.

Last week, I introduced a bipartisan, bicameral resolution to condemn the abduction of Pastor Jin and the Zion Church leaders and to demand their immediate release. This resolution is designed to pressure Chinese leadership to release the congregation members and to let them practice their Christian faith freely. It sends a message that faith is not a crime, and a government that fears its citizens' faith is nothing more than an oppressive tyranny.

Pastor Jin's daughter and her husband Bill, a native Houstonian, wrote about the CCP's persecution in the Washington Post this past week. In their column, they made a piercing observation, and I want to share it here in full:

There were few more obvious ways to showcase the bankruptcy of an ideology--and the vitality of the Christian faith--than by forcing peaceful believers to suffer for the sake of their convictions.

This is a profound truth. China, like other communist regimes before it, utterly despises the fact that there is and always has been a higher authority than the state itself. In its effort to bring every aspect of society under brutal government control, the CCP uses state power to drive fear into the hearts of its citizens. History has shown that these tactics will fail, and the persecuted church will only grow stronger.

The Apostle Paul reminds us that God gave us not a spirit of fear but of power and of love. I know that that same spirit--one of power and of love--is what the church in China is fighting with.

I urge my colleagues to join me in passing this resolution unanimously to show our support for Pastor Jin, his family, and his fellow believers, and to show the world that the United States stands on the side of freedom, on the side of faith, and we stand with the persecuted Christians in China.

Res. 463.
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Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I know of no further debate on the resolution, as amended.
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