Jin Mingri · Full chronicle and history

On September 17, representatives of multiple religious groups held an event at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, urging Trump to raise the issue of religious freedom in China at the Trump-Xi summit and calling for the release of people imprisoned for their faith as well as Hong Kong media figure Jimmy Lai. Pastor Kim Myeong-il, who was freed, and others attended and recounted their experiences.

In September 2026, former US Ambassador for International Religious Freedom Brownback and recently released Pastor Jin Mingri held a lunch meeting in Washington to discuss the significant impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on global religious freedom and human rights, and reviewed the shift in US security strategy over the past 25 years and its profound impact on the world.

According to Hu Liren's video, U.S. President Trump raised the cases of Li Zhiying and Pastor Kim Myeong-il directly with Xi Jinping. Xi Jinping said the release of Pastor Kim could be considered, and Pastor Kim was subsequently rescued and released from prison.

The Beihai Procuratorate in Guangxi has officially indicted Pastor Jin Mingri and eight other pastors and co-workers from the Xi'an church on charges of fraud and illegal business operations, marking a continued crackdown on religious faith groups by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

On July 27, 2026, Beijing Zion Church pastor Kim Myeong-il, after arriving in the United States, gave an exclusive interview, disclosing that the authorities handling the case had characterized the believers' voluntary offerings, support for pastors, and theological training as fraud and illegal business operations involving over 10 million yuan.

Pastor Kim Min-chul was released on Independence Day, less than two months after the summit between Trump and Xi Jinping in May.

In July 2026, Kim Myeong-il, a pastor of Beijing Zion Church, was released and arrived in the United States after high-level China-US negotiations, but eight other pastors and believers from the church, including Wang Lin, remain criminally detained on charges of illegally using information networks and face judicial prosecution.

Kim Myeong-il said that after being taken out of the detention center he was transported by high-speed rail and police car to Guangzhou International Airport, where prosecutors announced they would not prosecute him, and then his passport was returned and he was put on a flight to the United States.

Pastor Kim Myeong-il of Beijing Xi'an Church was released on July 3 after being detained by the Chinese government for nearly ten months, and subsequently traveled to the United States to reunite with his family.

Jin Mingri, a Beijing house church figure and founder of Zion Church, has been released after years of detention and flown to the United States by a chartered flight from Beijing.

Pastor Jin Mingri has been released by the CCP. Host Hu Liren believes this is a signal of Xi Jinping 'kneeling and begging' to the United States, and predicts that Jimmy Lai will also be released soon.

Kim Myeong-il arrived in the United States accompanied by the U.S. Consulate and learned that 8 of his coworkers are still in prison in his case, while another 9 have been released on bail.

Pastor Kim Min-il was detained by the Chinese government for 266 days and was released on the eve of U.S. Independence Day in 2026. At a religious group event in Washington, he expressed his hope that the Trump-Xi meeting would facilitate the release of eight colleagues still in prison, as well as house church leaders such as Pastor Gao Quanpu and Pastor Wang Yin.

Kim Myeong-il said that lawyer Li Guisheng met with him again on June 9 and promised that no matter the cost, he would not give up defending him.

Kim Myeong-il said that after the prosecutor's office began questioning him, he wrote a letter and announced a hunger strike lasting two days because lawyer Lee Gwi-saeng was unable to meet with him.

Kim Myeong-il stated that his case was transferred from the case-handling unit to the procuratorate on May 25, and the case files and other materials have entered the procuratorate's processing stage.

Police in Beihai, Guangxi, took away Pastor Kim Myeong-il on suspicion of the crime of illegally using the information network. Kim Myeong-il said that a total of 18 people were taken away, some of whom were released on bail pending trial, while 8 remain detained.

Kim Myeong-il said that in 2018 the government imposed similar administrative restrictions on his house, affecting his work and buying and selling, and putting him in debt.

Kim Myeong-il said that after the Beijing church was cracked down on in 2018, the VOA Chinese website invited him to talk by telephone about his own situation and that of the Xi'an Church.

Kim Myeong-il said that he arrived in Beijing in the early morning of June 5, 1989, returned to school after seeing the city paralyzed, and left Beijing on June 9.

Kim Myeong-il said that on the morning of June 4, 1989, when he was coming down Mount Tai after watching the sunrise, he learned of the shooting in Beijing through a Voice of America broadcast relayed by Mount Tai's loudspeakers.