UPDATE (12 January 2026): On 9 January China Aid reported that Yayang Church is still under siege and that its bell tower, education building and kitchen have been demolished and its cross removed. Drones are monitoring the area and anyone who takes photos, records videos or posts online will be arrested. Government personnel are stationed inside other church premises in the area to conduct surveillance and local Christians are being monitored.
A huge police crackdown took place between 13 and 18 December on the unregistered Yayang church network in Taishun county, Wenzhou city in Zhejiang province on China’s east coast. Many members were detained for questioning, two senior leaders have been arrested and placed in criminal detention and on 4 January the authorities surrounded the main church site (pictured) with heavy construction vehicles including bulldozers.
Over a thousand police officers, SWAT units, anti-riot forces and firefighters from cities across the province converged on Yayang town from 13 December in a coordinated crackdown on its network of twelve independent house churches. Local witnesses reported seeing roving police patrols and multiple checkpoints at entrances to the town, and in the early hours of 15 December police stormed the main Yayang Church building. Over two hundred Christians who were inside the church were taken away for questioning and held at undisclosed locations until approximately 11 am that morning. Personal belongings were confiscated, roads leading to the church were sealed off and Christians are currently barred from entering the church building.
Bitter Winter reported that over the first two days of the crackdown more than one hundred Christians were taken from their homes or workplaces and that more were detained on 16 and 17 December. China Aid reported on 5 January that at least twenty members of the twelve churches in the network have been placed in criminal detention. Senior leaders Lin Enzhao (58) and Lin Enci (54) were arrested and remain in detention in the Wenzhou Detention Centre, and they have been refused permission to meet with their lawyers.
During the crackdown period local public security authorities had posted wanted notices for the two men, who are brothers and highly-respected church leaders, describing them as “principal suspects of a criminal organisation” on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” and offering rewards for information. China Aid reports that observers have been shocked by “the authorities’ attempt to bring criminal charges against the two under the highly stigmatising label of an ‘organisation with characters of a criminal syndicate’.”
In a surprise move, on the evening of 15 December local authorities set off fireworks at square in front of the Yayang town government building, in a large display that did not mark any traditional festival or official holiday. Local Christians interpreted it as a celebration of the suppression of their church.
The arrest operation is believed to have been triggered by Yayang Christians’ opposition to hanging the national flag inside their church building – an anonymous Christian reported that someone had recently removed the national flag from the church entrance. It followed years of tension between local Christians and the authorities over the implementation of government religious policies, particularly the Christians’ refusal to erect a flagpole and raise the national flag in the main areas of the church building and their refusal to remove crosses from church buildings in Yayang.
Harassment of the church escalated in June 2025, when local Mayor Li Bin led around one hundred people to break into the Yayang Church meeting site at night, demolish the perimeter wall and gate, install surveillance cameras, erect a flagpole and hold a flag-raising ceremony. Since then, church members have frequently been summoned for talks and threatened, and police arrested a group of church workers and other members in October.
Since the crackdown began, the local government has once again planted flags in the main church building.
Families struggling
Senior leaders Lin Enzhao and Lin Enci grew up in a Christian family and have two brothers who were also detained in the crackdown. Their elderly father, who is unable to care for himself, has become physically and mentally exhausted and is now bedridden, while Lin Enci’s wife and children have reportedly struggled to cope since the crackdown.
Lin Enzhao was imprisoned more than ten years ago for defending church property and opposing the forced removal of crosses.
Construction vehicles surround main church site
On 4 January hundreds of armed police officers cordoned off the area around the Yayang Church building and ordered Christians living near the church to evacuate their homes, while cranes, bulldozers and other heavy construction vehicles were deployed to surround the church building, leading to fears that local authorities may plan to remove the cross from the roof or demolish part or all of the buildings.
On 5 January China Aid stated, “CCP authorities mobilised hundreds of armed police and special police forces to completely encircle Yayang Christian Church. Christian residents living near the church have been forcibly cleared or driven away, and individuals at the scene have been strictly ordered not to take photographs or record video.
“At the same time, heavy engineering machinery, including cranes and bulldozers, has been deployed to the site. Although authorities have not publicly announced their intentions, there is grave concern that the operation may involve the forced removal of the church’s cross or the demolition, seizure, or destruction of the church building itself.
“The situation remains extremely tense. Believers are facing intimidation, isolation, and the imminent threat of violent enforcement. This unfolding siege represents a serious escalation in the CCP’s systematic campaign of religious persecution under the policy of so-called ‘Sinicisation of religion’.”
Reacting to this latest development Dr Bob Fu, President of China Aid, stated: “The mobilisation of hundreds of armed police and heavy demolition equipment against a peaceful Christian church is not law enforcement – it is state-sponsored religious persecution. Wenzhou, long known as ‘China’s Jerusalem,’ is once again under siege.”
Background
Wenzhou has a relatively high Christian population and has long been known as “China’s Jerusalem”. Taishun county’s church networks were established by British missionaries under the China Inland Mission, but were later influenced by Chinese church leaders such as Watchman Nee and took on strong local characteristics.
In 2014 Zhejiang authorities launched a campaign to remove crosses from the top of church buildings, but the Yayang Church refused to comply and retained its cross. In the following years Wenzhou authorities shut down nearly all Sunday schools, banned minors from entering churches and incorporated large numbers of house churches into the official Three-Self Patriotic Movement.
(Bitter Winter, China Aid)
Photo: China Aid