Families of over a dozen imprisoned Christians are begging President Donald Trump to raise their names when he meets Chinese President Xi Jinping Wednesday night — a tense subject both leaders would prefer to avoid but can’t afford to ignore.
Gao Pu, whose elderly parents are locked in a Chinese prison for preaching Christianity, told the Daily Caller the conditions inside are “inhumane and just brutal.”
Men are packed 20 to a cell, forced to clean dirt endlessly, and fed protein just once a week. Inmates are hosed down twice a month instead of showered. Anyone caught brushing their teeth or cleaning themselves gets beaten by fellow prisoners under orders from guards.
Gao’s 70-year-old father was recently beaten by a group of men. His 69-year-old mother, whom he called “the most innocent and pure-hearted woman,” suffers from high blood pressure, chest pain, severe bruising, and a weak left leg — yet she’s forced to stand in place for hours every day without rest.
“The way they are treated is just, you know, inhumane and just brutal and they’re actually, like, animalistic.”
Gao’s parents, Pastor Gao Quanfu and Pang Yu, were both entertainment industry figures who gave up fame and millions of dollars to follow Christianity. Quanfu was a famous musician and film/TV producer; Yu was a former actress and TV anchor.
After embracing the calling to become pastor and pastor’s wife, both were detained last year on charges of “using superstition to undermine the implementation of the law” — later changed to fraud. Gao says the charges are the Chinese Communist Party’s way of turning the acceptance of tithes and offerings into a 10-plus-year sentence.
But Gao’s parents aren’t alone. Arrested with them is another pastor of the Light of Zion Church, Tang Bingyi, who remains detained. Eight other Zion Church leaders, eight Catholic bishops, and several other Christian leaders remain imprisoned across China.
Gao said he understands the summit may focus on AI policy and rare earth minerals — but some things should be non-negotiable for a country built on the principles the U.S. stands for.
“I can only pray,” Gao said.
The pastor’s son wouldn’t be the first to see Trump’s pressure on China free detained Christians.
Trump made defending persecuted Christians a hallmark of his second term, even going off the teleprompter during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday to call out the group’s hypocrisy for not standing up for Christians facing persecution worldwide.
🇺🇳 Trump calls out the United Nations for hypocrisy, saying that they criticize him for protecting the US’s borders and children while ignoring the millions of Christians facing persecution.
Watch pic.twitter.com/OSP042JctV
— Derek VanBuskirk (@DerekVBK) September 22, 2026
Gao pointed to Pastor Ezra Jin, the leader of the Zion Church, who was released in July — just two months after Trump invoked his name during a visit to Beijing.
At a Congressional hearing Tuesday, Jin testified that his growing church reached 1,500 members by 2018, when the CCP installed 24 surveillance cameras at the sanctuary before mobilizing hundreds of police to shut it down.
Although the CCP scattered the church, it only helped it spread. COVID-era Zoom worship services made nearly 100 meeting places possible across 40 cities by 2025. The government arrested 30 pastors in October in response.
While Jin and many others were eventually released, eight still remain imprisoned on charges of using information networks, illegal business operations, and fraud — all connected to their online Christian worship.
“This is a tremendous insult and a vicious attack on the Christian faith.”
Jin credited his release to Trump raising the issue with Xi, plus an immediate letter from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and a statement signed by 33 members of Congress. Beijing knew Washington was watching.
Republican New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, the commission’s co-chairman, said he’s asking Trump “to appeal to Xi Jinping to show compassion and courage” as he did with Jin.
It’s not only small house churches targeted. The persecution reaches even the Catholic Church — the largest organized religious institution in the world.
Jason Jones, founder of the Vulnerable People Project, which launched a campaign to free Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen and seven other bishops imprisoned by the regime and replaced with CCP-approved leaders, told the Caller that Trump is in a unique position to advocate for prisoners of conscience.
“The administration should understand that not only are American Catholics united on this, but the whole Body of Christ is,” Jones said. “We are locking arms with our persecuted bishops in China. Their suffering is ours, and if they’re not free, no Catholic is free. No American president can make Catholics an afterthought to some trade negotiation.”
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham also asked Trump to bring up the case of Jimmy Lai this week, Politico reported Tuesday. Lai was a Christian pioneer of the fashion industry turned media magnate who was sentenced by a Hong Kong court this year on sedition charges and now faces 20 years in prison.
Trump’s former Ambassador-at-large Sam Brownback told the Caller that Lai, along with the Catholic bishops, is one of several issues he hopes the president raises by name during the visit.
Brownback said bringing up these cases could demonstrate to the world — and to Chinese citizens — what’s going on. It could also help show that the entire system China is implementing is flawed in its most fundamental aspects.
Having just published a book diving into the stories of several religious minorities persecuted by the Chinese regime, Brownback said the Communist government is aiming to crack down on any religion that places something above the state.
This is why China has sought to imprison Christian leaders, sterilize and “reeducate” Uyghur Muslims, place Falun Gong practitioners into forced labor camps while testing them for forced organ harvesting, and impose heavily burdensome restrictions on Tibetan Buddhists — including the disappearance of the six-year-old Panchen Lama in 1995 and the regime’s current plan to pick the next Dalai Lama as a puppet of the state.
While Gao joins Smith, Brownback, Jin, Burnham, and thousands of others in hoping even the names of these prisoners will be raised by the president, he believes there’s something anyone can do to help.
“And for the Christians here in this country, we desperately, desperately need your prayers. We need our parents’ names, our church’s name, in their prayers, every Sunday, every day. We need prayers.”
Despite the odds, the son hopes a dictator’s heart can be softened.
“What’s impossible with men is possible with God,” Gao told the Caller.
