The pastor of a prominent underground church in China who was detained last year as part of a crackdown on religious activity was released on Friday, his daughter said, less than two months after President Trump raised his case with China’s leader, Xi Jinping.
The pastor, Jin Mingri, who also goes by the name Ezra, was freed after more than 250 days in custody and allowed to leave for the United States.
Mr. Jin, the pastor and founder of Zion Church, was detained in October and later charged with “illegally using information networks.” After the Chinese authorities shut down the physical headquarters of his church in Beijing in 2018, he moved its operations online, broadcasting sermons on the internet. Those streams were widely popular, reaching an estimated 10,000 people all over China, Mr. Jin’s daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, said.
Mr. Jin was detained as part of a wider campaign against religious groups in China. Several other pastors were similarly taken into custody as Mr. Xi’s government tightened its grip.
Mr. Jin, 57, was one of two non-Americans whose plights were raised by Mr. Trump in May, when he met with Mr. Xi in Beijing. The other was Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon, who is a British citizen. Mr. Trump told reporters then that Mr. Xi had said he would “strongly consider the pastor” but that Mr. Lai’s case was a “tough one.” In February, Mr. Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a Hong Kong court after he was convicted of “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces.”
Ms. Jin Drexel said in a telephone interview on Saturday that she was “very much overjoyed and thankful that this happened.”
She said she had been reunited with her father on Friday night when he arrived in Los Angeles. It was the first time she had seen him since 2020, she said, and he was able to meet his one-month-old grandson for the first time. He is named Ezra in Mr. Jin’s honor.
Ms. Jin Drexel later sent a statement on behalf of the family, thanking “President Trump and his administration for their tremendous leadership.”
“We know that this could not have happened without the direct intervention from Chairman Xi Jinping,” the statement said. “We hope this is a signal of a positive turn for people of faith in China and relations between our two nations.”
John Kamm, the founder of Dui Hua, a U.S.-based human rights group that has long advocated for the release of political prisoners from China, said the fact that Mr. Jin’s release happened on the eve of the Fourth of July was symbolically important.
“It signifies what I’ve said many, many times: that if the Chinese want something bad enough, they will make concessions,” Mr. Kamm said.
Relations between China and the United States have largely stabilized after a rocky 2025, when the countries exchanged economic threats and tit-for-tat tariffs. Despite lingering tensions, both sides agreed in May to implement a “constructive strategic stability” to prevent the relationship from spiraling into direct conflict.
Among the policy changes that China has long wanted from the United States is a cessation of arms sales to Taiwan, which Mr. Xi has described as “the most important issue in China-U.S. relations.”
Mr. Trump said that he had discussed pending weapons transfers to Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing considers its territory, with Mr. Xi during the summit, calling a $14 billion weapons package that Congress approved in January a “very good negotiating chip.” The package has been stalled by the White House.
Before his arrest, Mr. Jin had been subject to years of surveillance and harassment. He was barred from leaving China to visit family members, who left the country in 2018, Ms. Jin Drexel said. She, her mother and her two younger brothers live in the United States.
The Chinese Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but in practice, the Chinese Communist Party permits only tightly controlled, state-approved congregations to operate openly. Still, it is estimated that tens of millions of Chinese Christians worship in underground churches, also called house churches.
Ms. Jin Drexel said she remained very worried about eight of Zion’s other pastors who were remain detained in China.
One of them, Franklin Wang Lin, told his church members in June that the authorities had recently added another charge of fraud against him, in addition to one of “illegal business operations.”
In a letter, Mr. Wang wrote that he had lost more than 30 pounds while in custody and was malnourished. The letter was sent to Mr. Wang’s wife, Su Ziming, through his lawyer.
Mr. Wang wrote that the authorities were seeking to define the collection of donations by Christians as fraud, which would be a rejection of “the two-thousand year tradition of Christian belief and practice.”
“Our faith is not a crime,” Ms. Su said.
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