Nick: Next week when president Trump meets Chinese president XI jinping, much of the top will be about trade.

As he has done before when facing trump pressure, XI has launched a major crackdown on the country's Christians.

There are tens of millions of Christians in China.

And earlier this month, beijing arrested a prominent underground church pastor and more than 20 other clergy and parishoners.

In 2019, I traveled to China and saw firsthand how the faithful are often forced to pray behind closed doors.

On the sixth floor of a beijing apartment building, an unmarked door.

Hello.

Inside, a secret church for those prohibited from praying in public.

>> [Singing] Nick: He is the pastor of the holy love fellowship.

His congregation among China's most vulnerable Christians, critics of the communist government.

His sanctuary, also his apartment and bedroom.

There was good reason for secrecy.

>> Since 2014, religious freedom has reduced.

On January 20 4, 2014, we were taken to the police station.

13 of us were detained as criminal for one month.

Nick: By then, he had been arrested three times.

2014 was the first time authorities detained his entire parish.

>> We were arrested because we defended the rights of other churches.

Nick: Christian activists city government has demolished thousands of unsanctioned churches.

The are some government approved ministries, but they have to display banners like this one that says, "Implement the basic direction of the communist party's religious group."

Hinese president XI jinping has described minorities and their cultures and religions as threats to stability.

Ost audaciously in 2017, beijing set up what activists call concentration camps for Muslim uighurs to crack on their language and culture and labor forced labor.

The next year, they banned one of the largest house churches when the pastors refused to install facial recognition cameras.

The church was forced to go virtual.

He told me his church and its parishioners were also under surveillance.

>> They know about our church.

The police had also come to our church.

But relatively speaking, we were able to persist.

Our persistence is our main grace.

Nick: For Zion church, instead of dying out in 2018, the congregation grew from 1500 to more than 10,000 daily worshipers across 40 cities.

But today, facing domestic economic headwinds and pressure from president trump, the government has again crackdown on Christians and the Zion church leader.

Earlier this month, beijing rounded him up and detained more than 20 of his fellow parishioners.

I am joined by the daughter and son-in-law of the Zion church founder.

Thanks very much, welcome.

Let me start with you.

What happened when your father was arrested?

>> July 9, 10, 11, initially up to 30 leaders of the church were taken away from nine different cities, including my father.

My father has severe diabetes and they are not allowing him to use his own medication.

I am worried about his health.

Nick: How are you holding up?

>> My mother and I and two brothers are all in the U.S.

We feel generally pretty safe we are protected by our government.

At the same time, to know that our loved ones are in China and we cannot do anything, that they are unjustly detained just for the freedom of faith, is shocking to us.

Nick: This is not the first time XI jinping's beijing has clamped down on Christians, nor is it the first time XI jinping has targeted Zion church.

How is this part of a trend?

>> XI jinping's China from the beginning has tried to push an ideological agenda.

Part of that has been tightening the screws on all religious groups across China.

The first big push on this was around 2018, 2019 you have researched.

Now it seems like they are trying to finish what they started or what was left unfinished.

Nick: Against all minority ethnic religion and culture.

>> Right.

The irony it is his efforts to clamp down on Zion church and many of the churches have backfired.

Because they took the physical meeting space of Zion church, they had to develop this kind of hybrid online/off-line decentralized model.

When covid hit, it expanded dramatically.

Nick: Your father worked for a state-sponsored church early on.

What was that like?

Why did he decide to launch an unsanctioned church?

>> Many people in the U.S.

Might think, why not just joining get legalized?

What we do not really understand is that in China, it means you are in the ultimate control of the Chinese communist party.

For example, what kind of service you can preach on Sunday, how many people can be baptized.

Children are not allowed to be at churches because there is a law in China that says you cannot proselytize to anyone under 18.

You realize that is a church in hostage.

It is not a free church.

Nick: XI jinping is traveling to South Korea next week.

He will meet with president trump during that trip.

What is your message to president trump ahead of that meeting?

>> Our hope is as a precondition, a sign of goodwill, whatever it takes, we would love for him to send a clear message to the Chinese party and she's meeting -- XI jinping that taking prisoners of conscience as hostage is not all right and these prisoners need to be freed.

>> I think this a beyond u-china relations.

This is a freedom of religion issue.

I would ask the global church to rise up and pray with us on asking my father and the 22 others to be released.

Nick: Thank you very much, both of you.

>> Thank you so much.

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