(Anhui Province, China — August 7, 2026) Ahead of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s expected visit to Washington in September, the wives of three detained Chinese house church leaders issued an open letter to President Trump on Aug. 5, urging him to raise their husbands’ cases during the summit and press the Chinese government to release them.
Maizhong Reformed Church, an unregistered Reformed Presbyterian congregation in Fuyang, Anhui Province — in eastern Chinese, between Beijing and Shanghai — has faced increasing government pressure. Between June and July 2025, authorities detained Pastor Zhang Sen, Pastor Chang Shun, and Elder Ma Tao on charges of “organizing illegal gatherings,” as previously reported by ChinaAid News. The three have now been held for more than a year.
The letter’s signatories — Xu Chao, Li Yunyan, and Li Mei — said the People’s Court of Yingzhou District in Fuyang held hearings in the case on June 9 and 10.
According to the families, prosecutors cited as evidence Pastor Zhang welcoming Christians released from administrative detention, officiating a church wedding, church families providing Christian-based home education, and members praying and gathering in private homes.
Defense attorneys argued those activities were peaceful expressions of religious faith protected by China’s constitutional guarantee of religious freedom and did not constitute “organizing illegal gatherings.”
The families said the court later extended the case by three months for supplementary investigation after disputes arose over the evidence presented during trial.
In the letter, the families thanked the U.S. government for past efforts that helped secure the release of other dissidents and religious prisoners. They urged Trump to raise the Maizhong Church case with Xi during the September summit, after previously asking him to attend their husbands’ trials during his May visit to China.
The families wrote, “Everyone who peacefully lives according to their faith and worships according to their conscience should be respected and protected.”
They also suggested Trump invite Xi to visit a church in the United States, saying they hoped greater exposure to Christian worship would reduce what they described as the Chinese government’s misunderstandings and hostility toward unregistered churches.
Chinese authorities have steadily tightened restrictions on unregistered churches and other religious groups in recent years. In 2018, Maizhong Reformed Church joined “A Joint Statement by Pastors: A Declaration for the Sake of the Christian Faith,” initiated by Chengdu’s Early Rain Covenant Church, affirming the separation of church and state and rejecting participation in the state-controlled Three-Self Patriotic Movement.
As of publication, neither the White House nor the Chinese Embassy in Washington had publicly responded to the families’ letter.
Gao Zhensai is a special correspondent for ChinaAid News. Founded in 2002, ChinaAid is an international Christian human rights organization committed to promoting religious freedom and the rule of law in China through advocacy, legal support, and international awareness campaigns.