Trump should press Xi on China's persecution of believers at home and abroad

But why was he in jail in the first place?

He pastored the Zion Church in Beijing, an independent Christian house church outside the control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the second-highest spiritual authority in Tibetan Buddhism, was abducted by the Chinese government 31 years ago. His current location is still unknown.

Details differ, but the underlying pattern is the same. Religious leaders and communities not controlled by Beijing face intimidation, detention, disappearance or worse.

Beijing's oppression doesn't stop at its own borders.

The CCP is increasingly waging a campaign of harassment, disinformation and lawfare - called transnational repression - against religious and political dissidents in the United States. Falun Gong practitioners alone have suffered nearly 300 bomb and death threats. Not to mention the persecution of them still raging within China itself, where more than 5,000 confirmed deaths of Falun Gong practitioners have been recorded since the crackdown began in 1999.

Just days ago, Anthropic reported disrupting China-based intelligence operations using its Claude AI platform to build surveillance dossiers on overseas dissidents and Tibetan Buddhist, Falun Gong, Christian and Uyghur communities, including the U.S. Beijing has a proven pattern of exploiting American institutions and technology to harass and oppress dissidents who had thought they had reached the safety of America.

Xi is scheduled to be in Washington starting on Sept. 24. Trump should make this system of coercion and control a point of discussion. Countries that won't even allow their own people to worship freely are not reliable trading partners and certainly not countries we want to prop up with our dollars. They may provide us with cheap goods, but our souls, and those of others, are not for sale at any price.

Communism officially denies the existence of God and establishes government as the highest authority in the universe. Therefore, everything is under its control unless it specifically permits freedom. A person's rights come from the government, not from God or anywhere else.

Communists, authoritarians and totalitarians figured out long ago that "religious people" must be controlled because they choose to answer to a higher authority - an allegiance that fortifies their willingness to confront and defy government when it is in the wrong, even at the cost of their property, freedom or lives.

Sounds like the kind of people we want to advocate for! Think of the Jewish refuseniks and evangelicals of the late Soviet era who confronted that evil regime, or the Christians in Burma who stand against the ruling military junta today.

But freedom comes at a cost. That's why it's so precious.

The cost to us is not our freedom, as it is for the Chinese Christians, Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners or Uyghur Muslims. It is our willingness to stand up to China.

He should continue to exert that leverage on behalf of people whose only offense is refusing to place their faith on the altar of the Chinese Communist Party. Now is the time to confront the CCP's extensive apparatus of religious oppression - just as Reagan confronted the Soviet system - and make clear that the Chinese people should not have to choose between their faith and freedom.

Americans will not accept Beijing's meddling when it follows people across borders and tries to stifle, silence or punish them for choosing both faith and freedom.

When Xi arrives in Washington, President Trump should make that clear.