In recent days, authorities arrested four missionaries and deported at least 32 more as part of an ongoing crackdown against Christian evangelizing.
The missionaries had been working in the northeast Yanji region of the country, providing assistance to fugitives fleeing North Korea, according to UCAN.
Dozens of South Korean Christian missionaries had traveled to China in past months and along with preaching the Christian gospel, they sought to help defectors navigate the perilous journey across the Yalu River, which separates China and North Korea.
On Saturday, the South Korean government in Seoul confirmed reports that some Korean missionaries had been arrested in China. Some of the missionaries had been working in China for decades.
Although foreign missionary work is illegal in China, local authorities have often turned a blind eye to evangelizing efforts by South Korean missionaries, taking advantage of the free humanitarian service they provide as well as the substantial bribes paid in order to avoid prosecution.
Moreover, according to the Christian Post, these expulsions may be connected to increasing political tensions between Beijing and Seoul. South Korea is proceeding with the construction of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system in partnership with the U.S. military, against the threat of missile attacks from North Korea.
In recent years, President Xi Jinping has tightened government control over religious activity in the country, often targeting Christians.
“Watch List” documenting Christian persecution throughout the world, the non-profit group Open Doors placed China among the worst offenders against religious freedom in the world.
“As Christians are the largest social force in China not controlled by the Communist Party,” Open Doors noted in its 2017 report, “there are increasing efforts to bring them under state control.”
Officially, the People’s Republic of China is an atheist country but that is changing fast despite crackdown, as many of its 1.3 billion citizens seek meaning and spiritual comfort that neither communism nor capitalism seem to have supplied.
