← American Thought Leaders
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A
The goal is to really eradicate Christian faith. This is a deliberate destruction of your conscience.
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Pastor Bob Fu is the founder and President of ChinaAid. He was a student leader during the 1989 Pro Democracy Student movement in China and later became a member of an underground house Church. In 1996, he was imprisoned for illegal evangelism.
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Used to be called face recognition. Now they're called form recognition system based on when you walk or move. Then based on that pattern, they would quickly recognize there was a religious gathering.
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B
How is the CCP escalating its tactics to persecute Christians and other religious groups?
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A
Communist Party China regime has no authority to nominate a Catholic preacher. And yet the Vatican chose to dance with the wolf.
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B
This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Janje Kelik. Bob Fu, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.
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A
Thank you, Jan, for having me again.
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B
Bob, we were talking just a couple of days ago about persecution of religious minorities in China. And I mentioned that I saw anecdotally what looked to me like an increase in dehumanizing rhetoric against Christians in the Chinese propaganda so called media. And when I said that, you said that you're seeing this as well, which kind of freaked me out, to be perfectly honest. I just want you to explain to me what it is that you're seeing. This is in fact what precipitated this interview.
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A
Yes, Jiang. What I have seen also in the context of the dramatic escalation of religious persecution under Xi Jinping, especially in recent years, the kind of dehumanization from treatment to the government propaganda also deepens. So that is a new kind of way to see this persecution against religious minorities across the spectrum. So not only really just Falun gong practitioners since 19, but now it has reached to other religious minorities. We certainly have seen what has been happening toward the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region. And now we have heard and received stories after stories about the mistreatment against Christian House church members, leaders and the independent Catholic clergy people and even the Tibetans. So I think this is a very serious development that is happening now.
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B
So let me touch a little bit on this, the rhetoric part. The reason I am so concerned with the dehumanizing rhetoric ramping up is because that's always sort of a prequel to atrocity crimes. And I've seen this phenomenon. We've seen this phenomenon. For those of us that look at crimes against humanity, often there's always that part that happens because, you know, basically even in whatever society, whatever totalitarian dictatorship, most people are not psychopaths and they need to be kind of tricked in their minds into treating someone or a group as less than or other. Or maybe they're bad, they're doing bad things, they're harming society. This is always how it's always portrayed. Or they're lesser than I am, they're, they're kind of less important. And so, yes, as you pointed out, right, this is what was done to the falun Gong in 1999 with massive propaganda being pushed through the system, but also to ethnic minorities, to the Tibetans and Uyghurs in particular, who are kind of, you know, demoted, right, in terms of their level of humanity in the rhetoric itself. Can you give me some examples maybe of what you've seen with Christians in this respect?
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A
Yes, certainly. I mean, what you and I talked really reminded me about the so called, you know, the black categories. He Wu Lei, you know, back to 1960s, actually a little earlier that after the Communists took power and the Chen Reimburg, I mean, kind of labeled. There are five different categories of people they called black categories. They are the landlord, the wealthy, Fan means the counter revolutionaries, Hui means just bad people and yu means the rightist. So the whole world actually had witnessed how horrible, I mean, those people who were mistreated and really like a sub human being under these five black categories. If you were classified as a landlord, like my neighbor in my childhood home when I grew up, who was classified as a former landlord or counter revolutionary. I remember like five, six o' clock in the morning, I always heard the party secretary of my village, I mean, start shouting out, yelling to my neighbor, said get out, it's time to sweep the street. Then I could hear the door opened and then the main street of our village was being swept inch by inch by my neighbor. I even called him Grandpa according to the generation gap. So he was really treated like a scum. Like a piece of scum does not constitute a worthy of existence. I mean, it's kind of in essence, it was like a Communist Party engineered slavery system. And now, I mean, I think it's back to maybe 10 years or a little bit earlier. According to a Communist Party controlled think tank leader, Mr. Yuan Peng, he was the institute, the director of Institute of American Studies under the so called Institute of Contemporary International Relations, which is totally founded and controlled by the Ministry of State Security, Guan Bu he classified new black categories. And you know, Yang, you may have heard about this, but the new so called black categories, the illegal religious or underground religious groups, that's one of the categories and also petitioners, of course, political dissidents and human rights lawyers. And I mean, just the five different new categories. I mean, basically he make these five new categories singled out. It's just those people, like, not worthy to be called Chinese citizens. And of course, for the Chinese Christians, we all know how they had been mistreated. I remembered Even back to 2002, when I received a stack of handwritten testimonies about torture from mostly a group of Christian ladies who was tortured in most inhuman nature. I mean, those Christian ladies, I think at least I still have that in written form. They use their own blood, you know, finger blood, just fingerprint it. Basically testifying how truthful they shared. I mean, from strip off their clothes totally naked to. To aid the electric shock batons, torturing them from the head to toe and including their private parts. And one lady even described she was taken to a provincial police academy in a dorm like four or five policeman, half naked, and basically put her naked and start torturing her. And until, I mean, with electric shock batons. And she was crying out, basically asking the Lord to take her life. I mean, you and I, you know, we know our Christian faith. We rarely heard any Christians would commit suicide. And that is doctrinally not even allowed. But she just was tortured so severely, she was asking the Lord to take her life, that she said she would rather to be in the presence of the Lord and then being tortured that way. And then all of a sudden, an electric shock baton was put into her mouth, into her mouth, and she passed out. And then she was taken even to an ER room in the local hospital. Even the local. I mean, the hospital nurse starts rebuking this policeman, said, you know, what did she do any wrong for this young lady to warrant such a torture against this lady? And I also read testimonies like that one Christian lady, during her interrogation, the interrogator specifically put kind of a piece of paper and write a letter God, like force her to stoop on the name of God. I mean, you see, I mean, this is like purposely deliberate destruction of your conscience by force. They try to, I mean, remind me, of course, what happened to some Falun Gong practitioners, right? And they want to, during the. The interrogation, they put the Mr. Li Hongzhi's name or picture there. And then I have read testimonies, offer testimonies of these Tibetan monks who were forced to do the same thing on the portrait and picture of Dalai Lama, basically to step on and have to shout a slogan like something. Utter hatred toward their spiritual leader. This kind of treatment is in alignment with the similar Communist party's ideology and doctrine. I know you have a book coming out analyze from the very deep theological or theoretical analysis why communism kind of in the end is the source of this kind of evil. So I've seen, I mean, even as recent as just in 2025 when the Xi Jinping launched the largest wave of persecution against urban house church movement like the Zion Church, many of their family members were being mistreated that way, too. I mean, like one of the house church pastors from Zion Church in Beijing when he was being arrested and put a handcuff, and her mom, I mean, who was a very elderly lady, was in front of him and had a heart attack. I mean, even in the most kind of ordinary circumstance, you know, you would let the son at least to comfort his mom a little bit who was dying, right? No, I mean, those state security agents did not even allow this pastor to take care of his dying mom. And somebody else had to escort, I mean, call an ambulance to rescue her in the emergency room in the local hospital. And you have seen the family members, you know, went to the Beihai city, you know, number one, number two, detention center where the A team arrested or being held. So I think this is happening across the board.
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B
Well, let me tell you what's on my mind, right? And thank you for referencing Kill to order. My book, indeed, a big part of it is trying to explain to people the nature of that system and why this forced organ harvesting industry that exists is sort of a feature, not a bug of it, so to speak. But, you know, I keep thinking about this, right? When this organ harvesting industry was started, right, it was started immediately after the communists just put massive propaganda into the system to dehumanize the Falun Gong practitioners to make their fellow man, so to speak, hate them and look at them as lower as I was saying, right? And then when no one really did anything about it for 14 or 15 years, they did the same thing to the Uyghur people. They, you know, of course, you know, isolated area in the northwest of China under military control. You know, they pushed more of that dehumanizing rhetoric into the system. They incarcerated millions of them now and started, you know, using them in the organ industry. Actually, Ethan Gutman has a very important book coming out very soon called the Xinjiang Procedure, trying to assess more of the details of how that played out. But, you know, as I'm watching, right, you know, it's this kind of the Naimoler poem comes to my mind, right? You Know, it started first, they came for the Jews, but I wasn't a Jew, so I didn't do anything. It kind of goes on like that. Right. And now I'm concerned, you know, to be honest, as I'm seeing and you're kind of validating that there's this increased rhetoric, dehumanizing rhetoric against Christians and of course the persecution is very clear that, you know, the whole Zion Church being wrapped up, rolled up. There's all these leaders still in prison. There's these increased controls on the Catholic clergy. I think I saw that come from China, aid from your organization. You know, there's this whole kind of ramping up happening. And you know, maybe it's time for us to kind of challenge this whole horror show at the very least, you know, reduce our own complicity in some of these extreme atrocity crimes lest they start happening to yet another group. Right, that's what I'm thinking.
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A
Yeah. I mean, it's almost like if you read these Communist party rhetoric and terms, you couldn't help but concluding they treat those that in their eyes as dissidents or evil cult members or now the new term of the inciting of subversion of state power in recent weeks against the early Iran Covenant Church. Seven of them and at least four are formally arrested under this charge or used the term fraud against those Christian leaders in many provinces like Shaanxi in province, in Linfen City just last year alone, they sentenced this one church. The 12 church leaders, I mean, received 15 years, 10 years and eight years. I mean 12. All of them were sentenced for basically as peaceful church leaders. And so, I mean, the term they often used is they called si xiang zhuan hua means like mind transformation. Or I mean, they treat, you treat this really peaceful, loving people faith as like guinea pig, like little, you know, mice in the lab that they can change your behavior. I mean, the only difference is one these animals they put in the lab to control the behavior through medicine or other medical control. The other is of this human being they caged you in the concentration camp to the mind control transformation centers all over China. And I think basically they're doing the same kind of practice and experiment like the Nazis to the druze in the 1930s-40s. Don't we think there is similarities behind this thinking?
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B
Bob, when you were describing this new classification system of black classes that was created a while back, one thing that struck me might not be obvious to everybody, but you talked about underground religions becoming one of those black classes. And that of course refers to the House church Christian group specifically. That's kind of their, their description as I understand it. That's correct. I mean, basically you're saying that that was kind of the genesis of this particular focus and kind of increased rhetoric and increased fixation on persecution.
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A
Yes, I think that was the Genesis for the CCP's targeted campaign.
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B
Why now? Why is there this? Why do you think there's this increased dehumanizing rhetoric kind of starting really to bubble up now?
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A
I mean, I don't want to overly spiritualize, but there is a spiritual factor as Christians, you know, it was, I mean, still is a battle between the darkness and light. I mean, I think the amount of corruption and darkness among this CCP system really could not tolerate a group of peaceful, genuine, loving, caring, bright people of faith. I mean The Christians in 2008 when the Wenchuan earthquake happened, they're the first group, I mean even like their being classified as illegal, they drove their tractors and riding bicycles. I mean from all over China to Sichuan Province, that's where actually the early Iranian Covenant Church in Chengdu, near Chengdu. So even the Ministry of Civil affairs actually in public in their announcement praising the Chinese Christians who are the first group of rescuers with hundreds of thousands, when there are some even migrants there to take care of those orphans whose parents were buried and died and some started schools for them, some are still living there. And yet after a few months, you know, the first group of rescuers to the earthquake areas were targeted are Christians again. So the Communist Party call it a mind and heart battle. They feel like the generosity, the love, the care of Christians have successfully brought or turned the heart of mind of the perception of Christians in the earthquake relief, I mean earthquake affected areas that the Communist Party cannot bear for that change and they want to basically destroy that the positive image of Christian faith. And second, I think, you know, everything's political in the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party. And in essence when Xi Jinping wants to play God, the true triune God of the Bible that those Christians believe has become or at least regarded as infidels, as like not true patriotic citizens who refused to worship and bow to Xi Jinping's portrait imposing the church and synagogue or temples. So to them, to the Communist Party loyalists and Xi Jinping's followers, this constitute betrieval or, or like the disloyalty to the absolute command of the Communist Party. So they are not really tolerating the existence of this group. So that's why I made a conclusion that unlike the past waves of persecution Launched from the beginning of the Communist Party taking power in 1949, this new wave, the goal is to really eradicate Christian faith. I mean, from the map of China. But we all know they will fail and fail miserably. Because historically, how many Caesars in Roman Empire tried but failed miserably. And even in the history of People's Republic of China, multiple political leaders had tried but again failed miserably. And even the revival of the church has happened instead of demise or destruction of the church, but they want to try anyway. So I think that's how I can see or interpret what they're doing.
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B
Well, and there's this. It strikes me that there's this really kind of, I don't know, we call it increased insecurity like we have, you know, of course, with the Zion Church, it was a fascinating situation, right, because they. When Covid happened, they took all of their operations online, right? In actually a very public way, which is kind of, you know, almost surprising and then. But what they did was they didn't, you know, they weren't say, like the Falun Gong practitioners where they're actively asking people to quit the Communist Party and, you know, revealing the crimes of communism or something like that. This is at the Zion Church, people were just simply, you know, practicing their faith in a very basic way, going to, you know, having these church services and so forth. And really, as Grace Jean recently explained to me, right, like really trying to minimize anything that could possibly be considered a problem by the regime. But that actually wasn't enough because in this context of an online church, all sorts of people spoke to a whole lot of people and a whole lot of people wanted to join this. Right? And even in this sort of extremely careful environment, the regime had to jump in and basically crush it and jail the leadership and. And as far as I can tell, push more of this sort of language and way of thinking that would make us make the population hate and dislike these people, be suspicious of them, right? This is what they always excel at doing.
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A
That's right. I mean, in a sense, the Communist Party treat these people as the threat to the regime's existence. I mean, I know when Hu Jintao's time, even in public speaking, I mean, he mentioned about, like, the Internet freedom is the existential threat to the Communist Party. I mean, to them, if the loosen or allow the Internet freedom, the regime will face a death sentence. I mean, I think now it implies with those they called new black categories, the Ri Wulei, you know, the underground church leaders, the human rights lawyers, like you know, Gao Zhisheng, I mean we, I'm holding this book, you know, published by the American Bar association who awarded Gao Zhishong as the best, most courageous lawyer in China. And just simply, I mean for taking up cases of according to the Chinese own law to defend Falun Gong practitioners, Christians in the court of law. I mean this man, I mean suffered first 10 years non stop torture. I mean any human being could not imagine 10 years. This is a record that after he was released, of course now he has been under enforced disappearance for another eight and a half years. So I mean this is a real patriot on any standard, a real hero for any normal society. But in the eyes of the Communist Party and he is regarded as a cancer does not even deserve to have a voice, to have even a basic announcement of whether he was where he is dead or alive to his family members. For eight and a half years already this man has been missing and he's an American citizen. A wife and daughter has been searching and calling for just basic, the whereabout of their loved ones. Gao Zhisheng I mean so this is I think one example very, I think real illustration of what's happening now in China today. If you are classified as like a danger to the so called political stability and regime security, you name them and then you are subject to this kind of treatment.
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B
Yeah, Gao Zisheng, I mean one of the true heroes of freedom and religious liberty and just fighting for the common man. It was heartbreaking that we don't, I mean I don't think we even really know if he's dead or alive at this point because no one has seen him in so many years.
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A
Yeah, I mean he even talked to me right before he was last time disappeared under force about some of his tortures. Most torturous moment like in a cave, underground cave. He was put naked and with three or four electric shock batons torturing him. And he made a very instant prayer. And then he said he sensed enormous, like a supernatural shield surrounding, holding him and unspeakable peace he felt. And he fell asleep quickly and he can smell, you know, the burning of his skin. But he did not feel any pain physically and mentally at all. And to the point he not only fell to sleep, but he started snoring because those several interrogators who were torturing him kind of woke him up
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B
kind
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A
of rebuking him sarcastically, sarcastically said we are working so hard like here with, you know, wet with sweat and you are sleeping and snoring. What happened like why? And then Gao Zheng uttered a word, exactly, almost word by word of the first John in the, in the New Testament. Something like, you know, the one who is inside me is much greater or powerful than you have, or what you have, or something like that. The whole world outside. So there is a. Yeah, exact quote from that Bible, the scripture. But it also tells, right, to what extent, I mean, these torturers want to break your nerve. I mean, treat people like Gao Zhisheng, who is called the conscience of China, essentially they want to destroy the conscience of China so that a jungle world can be the norm for the Communist Party to operate.
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B
It's incredibly shocking to me how cruelly the communists treat what in our society would be considered, you know, the best people, I would think. You know, something also struck me as you were speaking about this sort of the free information being kind of a death knell for the Chinese Communist Party. And that's very interesting because we actually have the tools. I know because for example, at epoch times we have multiple firewall breaking tools that we use all the time that could facilitate, I think, almost unlimited firewall breaking if there was an interest in that. We use it as much as we can, so to speak. But these methods exist. And it's incredibly important how threatening the idea of free speech and free information is to the communist regime. Because I often say that their ability to disseminate convincing propaganda is probably the thing that every communist regime is the best at of anything. Because they'll convince you that it's a huge success, that it's, you know, utopian society, that the TLOC technological advancement is next level, that, you know, economically they're a powerhouse, you know, whatever it is. Right. And the reality of course is much more complicated and often opposite than the thing that you've, that you've learned. I actually recently spoke with a researcher that's been working with a case that happens to be at the Supreme Court right now. Cisco VI do a fascinating case involving the development of what's called the Golden Shield, of which part of which this censorship, what's called the Great Firewall of China, is a part. Okay, let's run this tape and I want to get your reaction to it. Ken, you're a researcher with the Human Rights Law foundation, and you've been working on this case now at the Supreme Court, Cisco v. Doe, for the better part of 15 years. It's amazing actually how long it's been going. You found some kind of startling new evidence before we go there. This case involves the Great Firewall of China, how it was built and actually, in fact, the Golden Shield project. Why don't you actually explain to me how this great Firewall of China and Golden Shield Project are connected and what it in fact is, is for sure.
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C
So I think there's a very common misconception out there that the Golden Shield is just the great firewall of China, it's just the censorship software. The truth is that it's not. The Golden Shield is a comprehensive surveillance system that spans across the entire China that's built at every single level of public security, from the ministerial, the provincial to the local levels, that maintains lifetime profiles of every single person in China, has your family information, what websites you've seen, who have you been dating, where you work, all of that information in a centralized database that allows the Chinese government to monitor and surveil all of its citizens.
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B
But what's the connection of that with the social credit system?
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C
It's a part of it. The social credit system collects information from big swath of society, crunches that information, generates a score. And that is, you know, that that input, that detection system, comes directly from the Golden Shield and all of the information that it collects.
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B
Explain to me why this case was brought and how we got to the Supreme Court.
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C
So according to the complaint, the core allegation is that Cisco is an American company from American soil, has helped the Chinese Communist government develop, build, customize and implement a far ranging surveillance system specifically targeted at the Falun Gong. And that system was in fact used by Chinese security to actually identify, arrest, surveil, and ultimately persecute and force transform those Falun Gong practitioners. So the case has been going on for quite a while now. It started way back in 2008 when allegations, Cisco internal presentations were found and publicly disclosed showing that they had targeted Falun Gong in their own internal material. So Cisco was brought into the US Congress for questioning. So we spent about three years or so collecting evidence from both within Cisco, you know, came from whistleblowers, from other people who had knowledge of what was going, going on in China. A hearing was held in what we call the motion to dismiss phase in California in 2014, and the District court there actually supported Coinbase's case to dismiss. Motion to dismiss. We appealed that decision. So the ninth Circuit basically said that, you know, we had presented enough allegations that allow the lawsuit to actually proceed. Cisco appealed that decision and now it's in front of the Supreme Court. And in fact, if I can just quickly read a quote from the ninth Circuit decision, I quote, according to the Complaint. The centralization of information and integration of security systems not only helped Chinese security officials with the tracking identification of individual practitioners, but also provide a system through which officials could track the progression of a given Falun Gong practitioner from detection to forced conversion to post detention and post conversion surveillance. So it's a system that's not just about identifying and tracking them, but also continues the entire life cycle of forced conversion in the parlance of the ccp, using threats, using information about who they are, who their family members are, who their kids are, where their kids go to school to persecute them. And the documents, the evidence that we have provides pretty clear corroboration of that, that this is what Cisco had helped the Chinese Communist Party build. It provides corroboration of the sort of interconnected network that conducts this full scale cross Penn Society surveillance, collecting that information, putting into databases, passing it out to psychiatric hospitals, black jails, detention centers where Falun Gong practitioners are persecuted, with the Falun Gong information databases that Cisco connected to all of these sites of torture. It's clearly corroborated by some of the other evidence that we have.
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B
Well, and you've actually found some new evidence that the specifications of this system from the Ministry of Security, if I understand this correctly, actually include the same sort of structure for house church, Christians and other groups.
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C
Yes, for sure. So the case was brought by Falun Gong practitioners to. So, you know, we've sort of initially focused on the Falun Gong aspects of the system, but among the, you know, thousands and thousands of pages that we've been, you know, scouring through, we found evidence that, you know, a lot of the same systems that have been created to target the Falun Gong also applies to other dissidents. Among the evidence of. And we have a couple. There's a Cisco internal document as well. There's a 2,000 page sort of overview and design, sort of specifications for the Golden Shield that corroborates a lot of this, what Cisco had built for the Chinese Communist government. And for instance, we found a very specific work stream in the Golden Shield that relates to the underground Christian and Catholic churches, how those users would be identified on the Internet from how they would be tracked, how they would be surveilled and monitored, and ultimately how that information would be stored and used by the public security for their purposes. What it means is that this case, it's not just about the Falun Gong, it has much broader implications. First of all, it affects every other minority, every other persecuted group in China, the Tibetans, the Catholics, the Christians, the Uyghurs, the Mongolians, the democratic activists. It's a very broad surveillance system that has been created in China with the help of Cisco that really allows them to cast this extremely wide surveillance network over dissidents in China as well as even folks, you know, what they're doing outside of China as well.
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B
Ken sun, thank you so much.
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A
Yeah, I mean first of all I think it shows this so called golden shield, as your guest said, is not only just Internet censorship software, it is really beyond that. It's a comprehensive program really to target, I mean the whole population for the control, the absolute control by the Communist Party. So I mean it's kind of the ovines, the software to help realize the Orwellian system number two is I think I see it's not only just targeting one group, of course I think the system is designed they can target a particular group or age group or ethnic group or religious group. But obviously this technology is applying to every other religious groups. Specifically even mentioned about the underground independent house churches, the Catholics and other groups too. So I have received reports actually even showing the, the kind of increasing qualitatively the level of control and monitoring. Grace Jean, the daughter of the Zion Church Pastor Ezra Jin, even shared a story with me. She said when she returned to China last time, of course she was grounded, not allowed to come come back to the US for a couple years. But she experienced in person at that time the Beijing Zion Church. They were gathering together on a weekly basis. To her surprise, she said at that time it was just a barely a few years ago when the police or public security agents raided them, of course all the phones, the computers were confiscated or being taken away. And in the past when the similar raid happened, usually the first thing the public security agents would order those members of the church is to give up their passwords of their phone or computer. But that time Grace observed that this public security agents did not make that request anymore. Because before they confiscated their phone or their computers, it seems clearly the public security officers, even in front of the arrested members, they were able to just unlock their phone like this quick. They know exactly their password or they already have a kind of monitoring or decoding system so fast they don't even need to ask at all. So they're now developing this technology not only used to be called face recognition technology or cameras or videos. Now you rely on the big data they call form like figure recognition system based on the way every human being when you walk or move each one the parent have a unique way of Walking or moving around. And just based on that, they don't need your face or ear or any other biological feature, just on that pattern for moving. They would recognize you both individually and also as a group. If a church or if some members like you know, by 9 o' clock every evening or every Saturday or Sunday, they gather on the street corner of one street. And then based on that pattern, they would quickly recognize there was illegal so called religious gathering or underground house church gathering. So they pinpoint that very quickly. I mean, I think the modern, unfortunately those technological giants in the west played a role in helping or enabling the Chinese Communist Party in their development of this horrible system.
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B
If you were to summarize for me the current reality for Christians in a. You know, I want to get like a kind of summarize for me the overall picture in China for Christians right now and how this compares to 10 years ago
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A
compared to 10 years ago. I think the persecution, both the quality of persecution and the quantity like the number of beings persecuted had been dramatically increased. Of course the Communist Party coupling with the modern new technology are wrapping up is a level of persecution we have never seen really in the previous like 10 years ago. And of course also the Communist Party Party making this new regulations laws just purposely designed to trap or criminalize those Chinese independent churches and church leaders to punish them in some cases in very unprecedented ways. You know, like 15 years imprisonment as nothing but a peaceful church leader like Pastor Yang Rong Li. She was a former college professor and turned to be a house church leader. And the Communist Party just using their church, her church like past 30 years worth of the believer's tithing and offering about 20 some million yuan altogether in 30 years. And then put on her head as a fraud. She was accused as the head of a fraud case and her husband, Pastor Wang xiaoguang received for nine years and 10 months imprisonment. And other 10 of the leaders received different years of criminal sentence. So this is very unprecedented. She served previously for seven years already and for leading her house church. But this 15 years is almost like what Jamie Le received this 20 years as 78 years old gentleman, Catholic believer in Hong Kong. Just because, you know, as a supporter of the Hong Kong peaceful protests against the communist repression in Hong Kong, I mean, received 20 years. It's essentially a death sentence, right? So I think that a lot of new features, of course the Communist Party has demonstrated in their new crackdown, but this is kind of a summary of what's happening. But I mean again, I'm not pessimistic in Terms of the revival and church growth, even with this unprecedented wave of new persecution under Xi Jinping, I think the church will continue to grow and increase instead of demise or destruction wished by the Communist Party.
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B
Listen, given everything you've just told me, what do you make of this Vatican China deal?
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A
Yeah, the Vatican so called China secret deal. I mean to me, both through the historical length and what's happening in reality on the ground under the secret deal, it shows it was a total betrieval toward the independent Catholic Church members and church leaders. And under this secret deal, I mean we don't know all the details but obviously the Vatican for the first time yield its sole authority to nominate and vet and also appoint the vanik, I mean the Catholic Church leaders in China to the Communist Party. I mean atheistic, repressive Communist Party of China regime has no authority, no qualification to nominate a Catholic bishop. Right. I mean that's almost common sense. And yet in order to, to yield the pressure by the Communist Party and accommodating the Communist Party's I think even economic and diplomatic pressure, the Vatican chose to dance with the wolf. That's a huge compromise. I mean just seeing the unrelenting persecution against the Catholic Church and the believers in China, there are a number of bishops are still either under forced disappearance or imprisoned for like 12 years, 15 years, 20 years, still have no freedom and continue those church leaders under the CCP's regime's repression.
- [56:54]
B
This is, I mean it's such a mystery because as you point out, it's not like this deal. Presumably the deal was crafted to you know, lower the pressure on the Catholics in China. Except that the persecution of Catholics has only increased since the deal. This is kind of, it kind of leaves me with my scratch, scratching my head basically. But Bob, this has been an amazing conversation. Thank you. Do you have a final thought as we finish?
- [57:24]
A
Thank you, Jan. I think I really want to thank you for leading the conversation and
- [57:33]
B
shed
- [57:34]
A
the light in the middle of the Communist Party's propaganda. Not only is to the 1.3 or billion people, the Chinese, but the international propaganda. Right. I think I hope more and more conscientious, freedom loving people can know the truth about China and especially the nature of the Communist Party and be vigilant. More from our end.
- [58:12]
B
Well, Bob Fu, it's such a pleasure to have had you on.
- [58:15]
A
Thank you Jan.
- [58:18]
B
Thank you all for joining Bob Fu and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Janje Kellek.