U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom calls for coordinated sanctions and federal investigation into transnational repression.
WASHINGTON—China’s communist regime continued to engage in “particularly severe violations of religious freedom” in 2025, targeting people in China and abroad, a U.S. religious freedom watchdog said in its annual report released on March 4.
Religious figures and followers who refuse to submit to the Chinese regime’s “intrusive system of control” are subjected to harassment, fines, detention, political reeducation, forced labor, imprisonment, enforced disappearance, torture, and other abuse, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) stated in the report.
“The Chinese Communist Party deepened its crackdown on all religious activities that dared to operate outside of its tight-fisted control,” Asif Mahmood, vice chair of the independent federal commission, said at the rollout event for the report.
Maureen Ferguson, a USCIRF commissioner, said the suppression in China is “across the board” and “systematic.”
“The situation in China is particularly egregious because they are persecuting every faith community, from the Uyghur Muslims to Falun Gong to the Tibetan movement to the underground Catholic Church to the Christian house churches,” Ferguson told The Epoch Times.
USCIRF also drew attention to Beijing’s “massive crackdown” on Protestant Christian house churches, citing the jailing of dozens of religious leaders, including Zion Church founder Ezra Jin.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is engaging in transnational repression outside of China, the report states, using “high-tech and emerging technologies to silence religious and ethnic minorities.”
It gives the example of a Chinese national who was arrested in Australia in August 2025 for allegedly spying on a Canberra-based Buddhist group on behalf of a CCP public security bureau.
In February 2025, Thailand, under Chinese pressure, deported dozens of Uyghur Muslims to China despite international leaders speaking out against it.
In the United States, former New York City police Sgt. Michael McMahon was sentenced to 18 months in prison in April 2025 for acting as an illegal agent of Beijing. He was one of three men convicted in 2023 of stalking a former Chinese official and his family in New Jersey as part of the CCP’s expatriation campaign called Operation Fox Hunt.
The USCIRF report urges the Department of Justice to “prioritize investigating and prosecuting” the Chinese regime’s transnational repression against religious minorities and activists.
It also calls for Congress to pass legislation to “assist those fleeing religious persecution in China.”
By Eva Fu and Frank Fang
