Pastor freed from China after Trump’s appeal to Xi

Pastor Jin Mingri, the founder of Beijing’s underground Zion Church, has been released after nine months in detention and reunited with family in Los Angeles, less than two months after President Donald Trump raised his case directly with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Jin, who also goes by Ezra, arrived in Los Angeles on July 3, his first reunion with family since 2020. In a statement, his family thanked “President Trump and his administration for their tremendous leadership” and said, “this could not have happened without the direct intervention from Chairman Xi Jinping.” They also expressed hope that it signals “a positive turn for people of faith in China and relations between our two nations.”

Trump raised the case in May when he told reporters he had discussed both Jin’s and Hong Kong democracy activist Jimmy Lai’s detentions with Xi during a Beijing visit. At the time, he said Xi would “strongly consider the pastor” while calling Lai’s case “a tough one.” Lai, 78, is now serving 20 years after his legal team confirmed in March they would not appeal, leaving diplomacy as his only option.

Jin founded Zion Church in 2007 with about 20 worshippers. It eventually grew into one of China’s largest unregistered congregations, reaching some 10,000 followers online across 40 cities after Beijing shut its headquarters in 2018. “My father started Zion in order to worship freely in a church that put God as the sole head of our church, like many faithful Christians everywhere,” his daughter Grace Jin Drexel told a congressional committee in November.

Jin Drexel also told The New York Times that her father had endured years of surveillance and a travel ban that prevented him from relatives in the U.S. He was ultimately detained in October with 17 other leaders in one of China’s largest crackdowns on a single congregation in decades and later charged with “illegally using information networks.”

For Asian American communities with ties to China’s underground church movement, Jin’s release is a rare win. Through the years, Xi has pushed to “Sinicize” religion by demanding loyalty to his ruling Communist Party. Still, at least eight Zion leaders reportedly remain detained.

The release also comes amid a fragile U.S.-China thaw following last year’s tariff disputes, with both sides agreeing in May to a “constructive strategic stability” framework. Still, friction persists as a stalled $14 billion Taiwan arms package that Trump called a “negotiating chip” suggests Beijing’s gesture is transactional and not a broader shift on religious freedom.