Trump diplomacy frees pastor Ezra Jin after 266 days in Chinese prison

President Donald Trump's direct appeal to Chinese leader Xi Jinping secured the release of Ezra Jin, founder of the underground Zion Church, after 266 days in a Chinese prison — a diplomatic breakthrough that freed one of China's most prominent Christian pastors on the eve of America's 250th anniversary.

"Chinese officials reportedly informed him that his release resulted from discussions between U.S. President Donald J. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, and was presented as a goodwill gesture coinciding with America's Independence Day," Bob Fu, founder and president of ChinaAid and senior fellow for International Religious Freedom at Family Research Council, said in a statement.

Jin was detained in October 2025 alongside 28 other leaders and members of Zion Church during one of China's largest crackdowns on evangelical churches in decades. The church, which operated without government registration, drew an estimated 10,000 weekly worshippers across more than 100 locations in 40 cities. Chinese authorities charged members with "unlawfully using online information," according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom's 2026 annual report, which listed 896 total victims of China on its Frank R. Wolf Freedom of Religion or Belief Victims List.

Trump raised Jin's case directly with Xi during a high-profile state visit to Beijing in May, telling reporters on his return flight that Xi promised to "strongly consider" the pastor's release. The U.S. president also raised the case of Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong's prominent Catholic and pro-democracy campaigner serving a 20-year sentence, though Xi described that as a "tough one," according to Trump. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had denounced the detentions in October and called for the group's release.

Jin was reunited with his wife, Anna Liu, and daughter Grace Jin Drexel in Los Angeles on July 3 — the first time he had seen his family in eight years. His wife and children had fled China in 2018 after authorities shut down Zion Church's physical sanctuary in Beijing. "We are feeling so overwhelmed with joy. We thank God for this tremendous miracle," Drexel said in a family statement. "We also thank President Trump and his administration for their tremendous leadership."

Eight other Zion Church pastors and members remain imprisoned, along with practitioners from other religious communities. "We respectfully call on President Trump and his Administration to continue making religious freedom and the release of all prisoners of faith a top priority in every engagement with Beijing," Fu added. "True progress in U.S.-China relations must include freedom for those imprisoned simply because they choose to believe."

The last time a U.S. president secured the release of a religious prisoner from China through direct diplomatic intervention was in 2018, when then-President Trump raised the case of three American pastors detained in China during the G20 summit in Buenos Aires. That intervention led to their release within weeks, though the broader trajectory of U.S.-China relations has since deteriorated amid tariff escalations that have reduced bilateral trade by more than $100 billion, according to Census Bureau data.

Jin, writing in the Wall Street Journal after his release, called for China to legalize house churches alongside state-run institutions. "My earnest prayer is that my release can mark the beginning of a new chapter for people of faith in China," he wrote. "Freedom of religion is a universal right promised in the Chinese Constitution."

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