China
Persecution Of Christians In Communist Red China At An All-Time High
In China, Pastor Su Tianfu slides into the back seat and tells the driver to hit it. He looks over his shoulder: “Is there anybody following us?” It is days before Christmas, but instead of working on his sermon, Su is giving his tail the slip.
Christians in China feel full force of authorities’ repression
“But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them.” Mark 13:9 (KJV)
EDITOR”S NOTE: Right now, as you grumble through your day, offended that no one is wishing you a “Merry Christmas”, just remember that for Christians in China their churches are being closed by the State and their pastors taken away for interrogation and re-education. Please pray for our Chinese brothers and sisters, and do what you can to help them in any way that the Lord would enable you to do so.
GUIYANG, China — Pastor Su Tianfu slides into the back seat and tells the driver to hit it. He looks over his shoulder: “Is there anybody following us?” It is days before Christmas, but instead of working on his sermon, Su is giving his tail the slip.
The slight and soft-spoken Protestant preacher is no stranger to surveillance. Su has worked for years in China’s unregistered “house churches,” and he said he has been interrogated more times than he can count.
But even Su is surprised by what has happened in Guiyang this month: a crackdown that has led to the shuttering of the thriving Living Stone Church, the detention of a pastor on charges of “possessing state secrets” and the shadowing of dozens of churchgoers by police.
A local government directive leaked to China Aid, a Texas-based Christian group, and reviewed by The Washington Post advises local Communist Party cadres that shutting down the church is necessary to “maintain social stability”— a catchall phrase often used to justify sweeping clampdowns.
The Dec. 9 raid on the church in a relatively sleepy provincial capital is conspicuous because of the timing — about two weeks before Christmas — and because the government’s tactics were revealed.
But it also speaks to a broader pattern of religious repression that is playing out beyond China’s mountainous southwest, as the officially atheist Communist Party struggles to control the spread of religion amid a broader push to thwart dissent.
“The overall environment in the past few years has been harsh,” said Yang Fenggang, director of Purdue University’s Center on Religion and Chinese Society. “There’s a tightened control over civil society in general, including churches.”
A question of faith
Unlike in many parts of the West, Christianity is thriving in China. Because of tight restrictions on religious practices, reliable figures are hard to find, but the Chinese government generally puts the number of Protestants (a group it calls “Christians”) at 23 million and the number of Catholics at more than 5 million.
Foreign scholars estimate that there are 67 million to 100 million Christians in China — compared with 87 million Communist Party cadres. Yang estimates that China will be home to 250 million Christians by 2030. Evangelical Protestants, like Su, are the fastest-growing group.
The Communist Party has a complicated, often contradictory, view of faith: The constitution protects the right to religion, but the state is unwilling to relinquish control.
“The Chinese Communist Party is violently allergic to non-party organizing vehicles, whether they’re nonprofits, libraries or churches,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch.
That means you can be a Christian, a Tibetan Buddhist or a Muslim, but only on the government’s terms. Christians must limit themselves to “normal religious activity” at a state-backed church, where party dogma trumps religious doctrine and where proselytizing is forbidden. Local officials decide what “normal” means — and what is legal.
That level of discretion gives authorities wide berth to close churches, tear down crosses or arrest Christian campaigners as they see fit — a sore point between the United States and China.
This summer, Chinese authorities arrested Zhang Kai, a lawyer fighting the removal of crosses in Zhejiang province, just days before the arrival of the U.S. envoy for international religious freedom, David Saperstein, and weeks before President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the United States.
Christianity has a long history here. Foreign missionaries have been working in rural Guizhou province, of which Guiyang is the capital, since the 1800s, spreading the faith among ethnic minorities in villages that dot the region’s thimble-shaped peaks. The pogroms of the Cultural Revolution led to the destruction of most churches and the persecution of many Christians, but the faith survived here quietly.
China’s economic expansion has since brought many of the villagers to towns and cities, where a sense of social dislocation and a longing for community are fueling a religious awakening.
When Living Stone was founded in 2009, it had about 30 members. By the time the church closed, services drew several hundred people at a time, according to interviews with seven members.
Here, as elsewhere, unregistered “house churches” operate in a gray zone — they are thriving but illegal, always at risk and sometimes ignored. As such, it is hard to know why and when crackdowns will occur.
A turning point for Living Stone seems to have been the acquisition of a meeting place. Church members pooled their money and last year took possession of a 7,000-square-foot space on the 24th floor of an office building called the Guiyang International Center.
Authorities let them meet there, sometimes, urging them to keep the gatherings small and social, not religious. After more than a year of warnings, arrests and threats, church members were given an ultimatum: Join a state-backed church or get shut down.
On Dec. 9, officials and security personnel swarmed the property, taking Bibles and songbooks.
A colleague of Su’s, Pastor Yang Hua, was detained when he tried to block police from taking security footage and computer equipment, two witnesses said. The day he was to be released, he was detained again, this time on charges of “possessing state secrets.”
Now, at the Guiyang International Center, the elevator no longer stops at the 24th floor, and police guard the entrance to the church.
“This is the site of an illegal cult and has been banned,” one officer yelled. “We are here to stop people from joining.”
They may succeed — for now.
Local officials say Living Stone’s members can join a state-backed church, and some probably will. But many of Living Stone’s faithful would sooner relinquish Christianity altogether than join a government church.
“When it comes to our faith, we do not want to submit ourselves to a political organization. Our only leader is God in heaven,” said Zhang Tan, a church member who used to work for the local government.
Su said he would continue to worship on his own terms, even if it meant holding this year’s Christmas service at home. “Faith and love of God cannot be chained,” he said. source
China
The People’s Liberation Army Of China Mobilized Aircraft From Different Theatre Commands Taking Part In An ‘Island Encirclement Patrol’ Near Taiwan
China tracks at least 143 warplanes and 56 warships entering air defence zone in four days as part of Beijing’s ‘island encirclement patrol’ near Taiwan
Over in Communist China, the People’s Liberation Army has been conducting called an ‘island encirclement patrol’ over by Taiwan, a country that they claim sovereignty over. The citizens of Taiwan do not see themselves as belonging to China, and that subject has been and remains a topic of much discussion. At some point, it is expected that mainland China will, according to their ‘One China Principle’, make a military move against them. Things like the island encirclement patrol and cross-theatre drills speak to that.
“And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.” Revelation 16:12 (KJB)
China right now is a nation that is ‘still percolating’, but according to scripture they’ll likely cause quite the dust-up in the great Tribulation. Together with Russia and Iran, China fills out the ‘unholy trio’ of end times nations that are waiting in the wings, listening for the sound of a trumpet that’ scheduled to blow shortly. In the meantime, China prepares for war over Taiwan.
PLA’s latest air and sea drills near Taiwan could signal surprise attack strategy, analysts say
FROM THE SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST: The People’s Liberation Army has mobilized aircraft from different theatre commands to take part in an “island encirclement patrol” near Taiwan, which experts said could signal a new strategy to prepare for regional military conflicts. The aircraft drills coincided with joint sea and air training conducted by the PLA’s Shandong aircraft carrier in the western Pacific Ocean since early this week. According to earlier reports it involved a total of 42 naval ships from the Eastern and Southern Theatre Commands.
A post on the Eastern Theatre Command’s WeChat account said its pilots and ground crews were taking part in long-distance, cross-theatre exercises to practice landing and taking off from unfamiliar airports.
Without saying when the drills took place, the post said the pilots had spent more than 10 hours conducting non-stop flights.
Pictures on the social media platform showed fighter jets such as the J-10, J-16 and Su-30 flying at night and during the day, while drills covered operations such as repairs, refueling, weapon replacement and emergency response.
Zhou Chenming, a researcher from the Beijing-based Yuan Wang military science and technology think tank, said the fighter jets involved in the drill would also take part in Beijing’s regular ‘island encirclement patrol’ near Taiwan.
“Like the island encirclement patrol, cross-theatre drills have become routine, taking place in the Taiwan Strait and western Pacific, which is part of combat-readiness training to prepare for the outbreak of a Taiwan contingency,” Zhou said.
Zhou said mobilizing different forces from its theatre commands would put the PLA at an advantage when dealing with potential challenges from joint US-Japan forces. READ MORE
China begins three days of military patrol around Taiwan
China is staging three days of “combat readiness” patrols around Taiwan – sending military resources towards the island to practice encircling it. Beijing, which claims Taiwan is a breakway province – staged the drills after the Taiwanese president promised to continue working with the United States and other democracies following a meeting with the speaker of the House of Representatives.
Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church
- HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page
Please continue to pray for us, and for wisdom for me especially, as we continue taking steps to print the NTEB branded King James Bible for our free Bible and Bibles Behind Bars program. It is exciting and intimidating at the same time. If the Lord has prospered your financially, we ask you to donate to help us continue to send out free Bibles at this level, and even higher than we are at the moment. It takes a lot of prayer, and a lot of resources to do all this. Praise the Lord we are doing it, all of us together, labouring in the Lord’s harvest field. TO THE FIGHT!!!
When you contribute to this fundraising effort, you are helping us to do what the Lord called us to do. The money you send in goes primarily to the overall daily operations of this site. When people ask for Bibles, we send them out at no charge. When people write in and say how much they would like gospel tracts but cannot afford them, we send them a box at no cost to them for either the tracts or the shipping, no matter where they are in the world. We have a Gospel Billboard program. We are now broadcasting Bible studies, Podcasts and a Sunday Service 5 times a week, thanks to your generous donations. All this is possible because YOU pray for us, YOU support us, and YOU give so we can continue growing.
But whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Time is short and we need your help right now. The Lord has given us an open door with a tremendous ‘course’ for us to fulfill that will create an excellent experience at the Judgement Seat of Christ. Please pray for our efforts, and if the Lord leads you to donate, be as generous as possible. The war is REAL, the battle HOT and the time is SHORT…TO THE FIGHT!!!
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)
“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB
China
The Biden Administration Has No Answer For Communist China Setting Up A Military Base In Cuba 90 Miles Off The Coast Of The United States
China and Cuba are negotiating to establish a new joint military training facility on the island, sparking alarm in Washington that it could lead to the stationing of Chinese troops and other security and intelligence operations just 100 miles off Florida’s coast, according to current and former U.S. officials.
Back in the early 1960’s, there was an incident called the Cuban Missile Crisis where the Kennedy administration brought the world to the edge of nuclear war with the Russians who had made an encampment in Cuba, a mere 90 miles from the US mainland. History would seem to be repeating itself as another Democrat, Joe Biden, is in office as Communist China announces plans for a military base in Cuba. Unlike Kennedy, the Joe Biden White House had no response when asked about this precarious situation earlier.
“And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.” Revelation 16:12 (KJB)
One of the hallmarks of the Biden administration is an absolutely terrible foreign policy, perhaps the worst we’ve seen since the Jimmy Carter years. Speaking of that, did you know that the Biden administration is, right now, engaged is secret talks with Iran? The Gatestone Institute recently said “Nothing seems to stop the Biden administration from wanting to reward the ruling mullahs of Iran with a nuclear deal that will pave the way for the Islamist regime of Iran legally to obtain as many nuclear weapons as it likes, empower the ruling mullahs with billions of dollars, lift sanctions against their theocratic regime, allow them to rejoin the global financial system and enhance their legitimacy on the global stage.” Now you know their ‘plan’ for how to deal with Communist China in Cuba. Yikes.
Beijing Plans a New Training Facility in Cuba, Raising Prospect of Chinese Troops on America’s Doorstep
FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Discussions for the facility on Cuba’s northern coast are at an advanced stage but not concluded, U.S. intelligence reports suggest. The Biden administration has contacted Cuban officials to try to forestall the deal, seeking to tap in to what it thinks might be Cuban concerns about ceding sovereignty. Beijing’s effort to establish a military training facility in Cuba hasn’t been previously reported.
The White House declined to comment.
The heightened anxiety in Washington over China’s ambitions in the Caribbean and Latin America comes as the administration is seeking to tamp down broader tensions with Beijing that have been stoked by a host of other issues, including U.S. support for Taiwan. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was on a high-profile visit to China these past few days, meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The trip appeared to halt a downward spiral in relations. But Blinken failed to secure China’s agreement to a U.S. proposal that the two countries resume military-to-military communications to avoid misunderstandings. He also raised U.S. concerns about Chinese intelligence activities in Cuba, according to a State Department statement.
U.S. officials said reference to the proposed new training facility in Cuba is contained in highly classified new U.S. intelligence, which they described as convincing but fragmentary. It is being interpreted with different levels of alarm among policy makers and intelligence analysts. The Wall Street Journal reported on June 8 that China and Cuba had reached an agreement in principle for a new eavesdropping site in Cuba; the White House characterized that reporting as inaccurate but didn’t elaborate. Two days later, the White House declassified intelligence to confirm publicly that Chinese intelligence collection facilities have existed in Cuba since at least 2019.
Current and former U.S. officials said a new military facility could provide China with a platform to potentially house troops permanently on the island and broaden its intelligence gathering, including electronic eavesdropping, against the U.S. READ MORE
Reports: Talks on China’s military facility in Cuba underway
Beijing has refuted a report by Wall Street Journal that claimed China and Cuba are negotiating to establish a new joint military training facility on the island located in United States’ backyard. This had sparked concerns in the oval office.
Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church
- HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page
Please continue to pray for us, and for wisdom for me especially, as we continue taking steps to print the NTEB branded King James Bible for our free Bible and Bibles Behind Bars program. It is exciting and intimidating at the same time. If the Lord has prospered your financially, we ask you to donate to help us continue to send out free Bibles at this level, and even higher than we are at the moment. It takes a lot of prayer, and a lot of resources to do all this. Praise the Lord we are doing it, all of us together, labouring in the Lord’s harvest field. TO THE FIGHT!!!
When you contribute to this fundraising effort, you are helping us to do what the Lord called us to do. The money you send in goes primarily to the overall daily operations of this site. When people ask for Bibles, we send them out at no charge. When people write in and say how much they would like gospel tracts but cannot afford them, we send them a box at no cost to them for either the tracts or the shipping, no matter where they are in the world. We have a Gospel Billboard program. We are now broadcasting Bible studies, Podcasts and a Sunday Service 5 times a week, thanks to your generous donations. All this is possible because YOU pray for us, YOU support us, and YOU give so we can continue growing.
But whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Time is short and we need your help right now. The Lord has given us an open door with a tremendous ‘course’ for us to fulfill that will create an excellent experience at the Judgement Seat of Christ. Please pray for our efforts, and if the Lord leads you to donate, be as generous as possible. The war is REAL, the battle HOT and the time is SHORT…TO THE FIGHT!!!
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)
“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB
China
China Begins Drilling A 32,000-Foot Deep Hole Into The Earth’s Crust Ostensibly Looking For Oil But More Likely Has Sinister Intentions Behind It
Communist China is drilling a hole measuring 32,800 feet deep into the Earth’s crust in the Xinjiang region, prompting suspicion of their motives.
Communist China is a rogue nation that likes to pretend that they are civilized, but in reality are not, they are always up to some sort of scheme. Because of their large size and their economy, most nations and nearly all corporations turn the other way in order to keep doing business with them. In 2021, we reported to you on the concentration camps active in China for the purpose of enslaving the Uighur Muslims. Nike profits handsomely by using this slave labor pool to make their trendy sneakers, and radical Leftists like Colin Kaepernick, Lebron James and nearly the entire NBA, just to name a few, lose no sleep over this arrangement. Walt Disney as well has no guilt or remorse filming movies within a mile of the concentration camps. So when China wants to ‘drill a hole’ that extends 32,800 feet into the earth you just know something shady is going on.
“And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.” Revelation 16:12 (KJB)
Aside from being eminently untrustworthy, Communist China is also a highly dangerous nation as well. China owns the largest share of rare earth minerals that are required to run all the technology this world run on. And then there’s Taiwan. Just 11 hours ago, The United States military released video Monday of what it called an “unsafe” Chinese maneuver in the Taiwan Strait on the weekend, in which a Chinese navy ship cut sharply across the path of an American destroyer, forcing the U.S. vessel to slow to avoid a collision. China provokes the United States on a regular basis, and that’s a battle that will absolutely be fought sooner rather than later. China is an end times force to be reckoned with.
China Drilling 32,800-Foot Hole into Earth’s Crust
FROM BREITBART NEWS: The drilling began Tuesday and is part of a “research project” in the oil-rich area, the New York Post reported Thursday, citing state media. “The venture is being led by state scientists as a means to further China’s deep Earth exploration venture launched by President Xi Jinping in 2021, the Xinhua News Agency reported,” the outlet said, adding the work was happening in the Tarim Basin.
An image shows what is reportedly the site:
China begins drilling 32,800-foot-deep hole in oil-rich Xinjiang region https://t.co/If5H9SVjIF pic.twitter.com/OZ84a488Jd
— New York Post (@nypost) June 1, 2023
Britannica describes the Tarim Basin as a “vast depression drained by the Tarim River in the Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang,” noting it covers approximately 350,000 square miles.
The area is “enclosed by the Tien Shan mountains to the north, the Pamirs to the west, the Kunlun Mountains to the south, and the Altun Mountains to the east,” the site said, adding it is an extremely dry area.
Meanwhile, Chinese Academy of Engineering scientist Sun Jinsheng said drillers will go down in more than 10 layers of rock during the project. “The drilling is expected to take about 457 days and is being led by the China National Petroleum Corp, which will use the project to test underground drilling machines and gather data on the Earth’s interior,” the Post article said. READ MORE
Communist China Starts Drilling 32,800-foot deep hole in the Earth
The drilling of China’s first borehole over 10,000 meters deep for scientific exploration began on Tuesday in the Tarim Basin in the country’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church
- HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page
Please continue to pray for us, and for wisdom for me especially, as we continue taking steps to print the NTEB branded King James Bible for our free Bible and Bibles Behind Bars program. It is exciting and intimidating at the same time. If the Lord has prospered your financially, we ask you to donate to help us continue to send out free Bibles at this level, and even higher than we are at the moment. It takes a lot of prayer, and a lot of resources to do all this. Praise the Lord we are doing it, all of us together, labouring in the Lord’s harvest field. TO THE FIGHT!!!
When you contribute to this fundraising effort, you are helping us to do what the Lord called us to do. The money you send in goes primarily to the overall daily operations of this site. When people ask for Bibles, we send them out at no charge. When people write in and say how much they would like gospel tracts but cannot afford them, we send them a box at no cost to them for either the tracts or the shipping, no matter where they are in the world. We have a Gospel Billboard program. We are now broadcasting Bible studies, Podcasts and a Sunday Service 5 times a week, thanks to your generous donations. All this is possible because YOU pray for us, YOU support us, and YOU give so we can continue growing.
But whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Time is short and we need your help right now. The Lord has given us an open door with a tremendous ‘course’ for us to fulfill that will create an excellent experience at the Judgement Seat of Christ. Please pray for our efforts, and if the Lord leads you to donate, be as generous as possible. The war is REAL, the battle HOT and the time is SHORT…TO THE FIGHT!!!
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)
“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB
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