The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has intensified its crackdown on religious freedom, making China one of the most dangerous places for Christians to practice their faith. Underground churches are raided, pastors arrested, and religious texts rewritten to align with Party ideology. Even state-sanctioned churches are not spared as Beijing seeks to eliminate any belief system and institution that challenges its absolute authority.
The systematic persecution and control of religion extends beyond Christians and includes Tibetan Buddhists, Uyghur and Turkic Muslims and Falun Gong practitioners. Religious houses of worship are closely monitored. Religious activities like proselytizing and organizing religious education for children such as Sunday schools or religious summer camps are banned. The Chinese government has arrested “underground” Catholic bishops and priests. How has China under Xi Jinping escalated persecution of Christians and what is the state of Christianity in China today?
Date: Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Time: 8:00 am (Washington DC). 6:30 pm (New Delhi).
Event Type: Live Podcast (YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn)
Speakers:
| Bob Fu Founding President of ChinaAid |
Sophie Richardson Activist & Scholar of Chinese Politics |
| Michael Cunningham Research Fellow, China, Asian Studies Center, The Heritage Foundation |
Moderator:
Sakina Batt
Host, Freedom Hour, AFI
Live Video Podcast Links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AsiaFreedomInstitute/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AsiaFreedomInstitute/streams
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asia-freedom-institute/
Participant Biographies:
Bob Fu
Bob Fu is one of the leading voices in the world for persecuted faith communities in China. Fu was born and raised in mainland China and was a student leader during the Tiananmen Square demonstrations for freedom and democracy in 1989. Fu graduated from the School of International Relations at the People’s (Renmin) University in Beijing and taught English to Communist Party officials at the Beijing Administrative College and Beijing Party School of the Chinese Communist Party from 1993-1996. Fu was also a house church leader in Beijing until he and his wife, Heidi, were imprisoned for two months for “illegal evangelism” in 1996. Bob and Heidi fled to the United States as religious refugees in 1997 and subsequently founded ChinaAid in 2002 to bring international attention to China’s gross human rights violations and to promote religious freedom and rule of law in China. As president of ChinaAid, Fu has testified before various bodies in the US, Europe and the UN and regularly briefs the US State Department and Congress. Fu graduated with a Ph.D. from St. John’s College at the University of Durham in the U.K. in the field of religious freedom and from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.
Sophie Richardson
Sophie Richardson is a longtime activist and scholar of Chinese politics, human rights, and foreign policy. From 2006 to 2023, she served as the China Director at Human Rights Watch, where she oversaw the organization’s research and advocacy. She has published extensively on human rights, and testified to the Canadian Parliament, European Parliament, and the United States Senate and House of Representatives. Dr. Richardson is the author of China, Cambodia, and the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (Columbia University Press, Dec. 2009), an in-depth examination of China’s foreign policy since 1954’s Geneva Conference, including rare interviews with Chinese policy makers. She speaks Mandarin, and received her doctorate from the University of Virginia and her BA from Oberlin College. Her current research focuses on the global implications of democracies’ weak responses to increasingly repressive Chinese governments, and she is advising several China-focused human rights organizations.
Michael Cunningham
Michael Cunningham is a Research Fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, where he focuses on China’s domestic politics and foreign policy. Prior to relocating to Washington, D.C. in 2021, Michael spent over a decade in the Greater China region, where he advised multinational businesses on the political, operational, and security risks associated with their business activities in China and Northeast Asia. Michael obtained a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Brigham Young University and a master’s degree in international affairs from American University. He has lived extensively in both mainland China and Taiwan and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and Portuguese.
Sakina Batt
Sakina Batt is a Producer and Director at Meeting Point, a leading audio-visual production house and buying agency in Nepal; and the host of Freedom Hour, a live video podcast of the Asia Freedom Institute. She directs promotional videos, does voice overs, writes scripts and copywriting for the videos in Meeting Point. Sakina worked for Tibet TV at the Central Tibetan Administration in India for four years (2017-2021) where she served as a news presenter and an interview host. She also made short documentaries for the channel, wrote scripts, conducted research, edited videos and anchored the show In Conversation with Tibet TV. Sakina has a Masters in Mass Communication from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi and a bachelors from Delhi University.
