(Zhejiang — January 9, 2026) Since December 13, 2025, the local governments of Wenzhou City and Yayang Town, Taishun County, Zhejiang Province, have launched sustained repression against Yayang Church (雅阳教会), also known as Yazhong Church (雅中教会). Amid tight information blockades, Pastor L recently interviewed Brother W, a Christian in Japan who has long followed the church and is familiar with it, in an effort to reconstruct the church’s background and what distinguishes this latest action.
Date: January 7, 2026
Interviewer: Pastor L
Interviewee: Brother W
Pastor L: Brother W, you have followed Yayang Church for a long time and have had close contact with them. Could you first introduce this church to us?
Brother W: Yayang Church is located in Taishun, Wenzhou. It is a very courageous and highly united church. During the most intense period of Zhejiang’s “cross demolition” campaign, they had already shown rare firmness. At that time, local government personnel came demanding that the church’s cross be removed. The church members clearly responded, saying, “If you tear it down, we will go to Beijing and protest at Tiananmen.” The officials ultimately backed down, and the cross was preserved.
That was several years ago. After that round of actions, the pressure to demolish crosses spread to Henan. Between 2016 and 2017, I organized more than a dozen pastors and church leaders from Henan to visit Yayang Church for observation and exchange. It was not done in the form of “training,” but rather through testimony-sharing and mutual learning. At the time, state security personnel were also present, but they merely observed and did not take action.
But now, everything is entirely different.
Pastor L: What is the current situation regarding surveillance and control? How much do you know about what has happened recently?
Brother W: Control is now extremely tight; it could almost be described as “abnormally quiet.” Yayang Church used to be a group that dared to speak out, yet now almost no public information is coming out at all, which shows how thorough the information blockade is.
This incident has also been a major shock to me personally. Pastor Huang Yizi (黄益梓) of Wenzhou has also been arrested. If I were in Wenzhou right now, I would genuinely worry whether I might face the same situation. It has made me rethink the meaning of returning to China to visit family—I have not seen my mother for many years, but even if I went back, I would feel afraid. Even though I am already overseas, state security personnel still occasionally “check in” on my movements.
Pastor L: In your opinion, what is fundamentally different about this crackdown compared to the past?
Brother W: The most significant difference is that now there is almost no room for maneuver. In the past, even if a pastor was arrested, family members could still petition, lodge complaints, and, to some extent, there were still channels for communication. For example, when Pastor Huang Yizi was arrested years ago, his wife petitioned in many places, and he was eventually released after about a year.
However, now, petitioning has almost wholly lost its effect. The government seems no longer concerned about its external image or public opinion pressure, giving the impression that “consensus has been formed from top to bottom.” In the past, if local governments went too far, reporting the situation to Beijing was tantamount to “slapping the local authorities in the face,” and they would sometimes rein it in. That space no longer exists.
Pastor L: You have repeatedly described Yayang Church as “courageous.” Could you elaborate on that?
Brother W: During the pandemic, most churches across the country stopped meeting, but Yayang Church was among the earliest to resume in-person gatherings, which required tremendous courage at the time.
Yayang Church truly is a “church on a hill,” even weddings and funerals are conducted with remarkable solemnity and presence.
This time, the government’s impact on the church has been more direct. On December 13, police broke down the doors while many believers were praying inside. The police surrounded the entire church and forcibly cleared it. At present, 25 people have been detained; the initial number may have been higher, with some released in succession later on.
From what it looks like now, this action was very likely authorized by higher levels. Local authorities no longer care about “saving face,” nor are they afraid of public opinion.
*Editor’s Note: The updated number is 20 individuals detained as of January 9, 2026.
Pastor L: How do you view the overall changes in the environment of religious affairs?
Brother W: China itself lacks effective mechanisms to check power and does not truly fear public opinion. Even when the international situation changes, cases like that of Pastor Wang Yi (王怡) have not actually improved. As far as I know, his current situation remains extremely difficult: his family is under long-term surveillance, his children are cared for by elderly family members, and their lives are under intense pressure.
The Wenzhou region, where Yayang Church is located, has long had a tradition of resisting external pressure. Churches there have relatively high autonomy and keep their distance from official systems. Precisely because of this, such a “so united and so courageous” church has now instead become a concentrated target of repression.
Pastor L: What is the current state of the church?
Brother W: Public gatherings have been forced to stop, and believers are dispersed and meeting in homes. The church’s bell tower and cross face demolition or reduction in size. Now, many brothers I know, people who once stood on the front lines, who were upright and zealous, have been arrested. This weighs heavily on me and on many others.
Pastor L: When Christians are fearless in love, that is when the authorities are truly afraid.
Postscript
The interview concluded with earnest prayer.
Local authorities continue to besiege the church, block roads, and monitor nearby Christians. Bulldozers, equipment used for demolition, have appeared in front of the church’s bell tower. The local authorities have already demolished the church’s kitchen and teaching building. Whether they will remove the cross or replace it with a smaller one remains unclear. Authorities forcibly took away believers suspected of taking photographs.
What we are discussing is no longer just a single church, but a question that has endured for thousands of years: in the face of overwhelming power, does one choose to retreat, or to defend one’s faith? One indisputable fact is that those who persecute the church are limited by their own span of years. The harm they bring to the church will soon become the past, but God’s church will continue to endure.