Cruz leads Senate push to hold China accountable for Beijing church crackdown

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is leading a push in the Senate to hold the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) accountable for its crackdown on Christians.

"The Chinese Communist Party is conducting yet another sweeping crackdown on Christians, and they are again targeting Pastor Jin and the Zion Church. The CCP fears anything it cannot directly control, perhaps most of all, faith," Cruz said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "The United States has powerful tools to provide protection and relief to people facing persecution and violence, and we should use those tools unless and until China releases the members of the Zion Church."

The resolution is aimed at "expressing condemnation of the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of Christians and reaffirming the United States’ global commitment to promote religious freedom and tolerance." It also includes a demand that the CCP respect the human right to freedom of religion and end all forms of violence and discrimination against religious minorities.

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Cruz's resolution also notes that "the CCP's actions mark the largest coordinated, nationwide crackdown against a Christian urban house church in more than 40 years." It also states that the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom designated China as a country of "particular concern for religious freedom" every year since 1998, under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.

"The Chinese Communist Party’s campaign of repression against Christians, including the targeting of churches such as the Zion Church, is a violation of fundamental religious freedom rights. I am proud to be an original co-sponsor of this resolution, which sends a clear message: faith is not a crime, and the United States condemns the recent alarming arrests of church leaders by CCP authorities," Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

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Earlier this month, Chinese authorities arrested several Christian leaders, including the pastor of one of the country's biggest underground evangelical churches, Pastor Jin Mingri, whose children are U.S. citizens.

Grace Jin, Mingri's daughter, told Fox News Digital that her family is grateful for Cruz's work.

"His efforts demonstrate that the world is watching on as the Chinese government unjustly imprisons pastors and church leaders for the peaceful exercise of their faith. Thank you to leaders here and abroad for all the support and solidarity," Grace told Fox News Digital.

Mingri of Zion Church was detained by Chinese authorities, Grace told Fox News Digital on Oct. 11. A document provided to Fox News Digital states that Jin's arrest came as nearly 30 Zion Church pastors and workers were detained or went missing across Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu, Beihai, Jiaxing and Huangdao.

"One after another, they were also taken, detained. Like, they were saying that there were people outside their doors, and then one at a time they were taken into custody," Grace told Fox News Digital.

The fates of Mingri and other Christian leaders arrested alongside him remain uncertain.