Senators Introduce Legislation to Combat CCPs Religious Persecution in China

Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) ahead of the Senate Republican leadership election in Washington on Nov. 13, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch TimesA bipartisan group of U.S. senators has introduced legislation that would impose sanctions on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials responsible for the persecution of religious groups.Sens. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) introduced the “Combatting the Persecution of Religious Groups in the People’s Republic of China Act” (S.5370) on Aug. 7.Under the legislation, any Chinese official who is “responsible for or has directly carried out abuses of international religious freedom” would be a target of U.S. sanctions. These abuses include arbitrary detention, forced sterilization, torture, and forced labor.The legislation would also target officials who impose “serious restrictions on freedom of religion or belief, expression, and movement involving ethnic and religious minority groups” in China and abroad. The groups named in the legislation include Tibetan Buddhists, Christians, Uyghur Muslims, and Falun Gong practitioners.The CCP began persecuting the spiritual practice of Falun Gong in July 1999, driven by fears over its widespread popularity, with estimates at the time putting its number of adherents at 70 million to 100 million. According to statistics from the Falun Dafa Information Center, millions of Falun Gong practitioners have since been detained inside prisons, labor camps, and other facilities, with hundreds of thousands tortured while incarcerated.The legislation would also direct the U.S. State Department to use its programs to “monitor transnational repression of ethnic and religious minority groups” by China.The ambassador at large for international religious freedom would be required to submit an annual report to the Senate and House foreign affairs committees. According to the legislation, the report would include topics such as sanctions imposed on Chinese regime officials “responsible for gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”Part of the legislation includes a Sense of Congress, stating that China should “end its harassment and persecution of members of religious organizations,” release “all unjustly detained political prisoners,” and ensure that detainees have access to family, legal counsel, and medical care.Budd introduced a similar measure in 2025 alongside a companion bill in the House.“As the leader of the free world, the United States must promote religious freedom around the world and hold China’s authoritarian regime responsible for decades of persecution targeting Christians and other religious minorities,” Budd said in a statement at the time.“The CCP’s restrictions on freedom of religion and cruelty toward religious minorities in China must come to an end.”In March, Budd and Kaine, along with a bipartisan group of Senate and House lawmakers, sent a letter to President Donald Trump, urging him to press for the release of Chinese pastor Ezra Jin Mingri, who was detained at the time, ahead of his scheduled meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.Jin was released in early July, two months after Trump and Xi met in Beijing.Zion Church founder Ezra Jin in Beijing in 2018. Courtesy of Grace Jin DrexelThe leader of Zion Church, one of China’s most prominent underground churches, Jin was detained at his home in October 2025 as part of a broader operation by Chinese authorities targeting the church. Several other pastors and congregants were also detained.Budd said that the remaining detained Zion members should be released before Xi’s scheduled trip to the United States in September.“While we are overcome with joy that Pastor Ezra Jin was released, eight Zion Church leaders remain imprisoned as the CCP fast-tracks harsh sentences against them,” Budd wrote in an Aug. 5 post on X.“Ahead of the Trump-Xi summit, I urge [Trump] to advocate for their release. A Chinese government that imprisons pastors and restricts religious freedom is intolerable to the U.S.”