{"id":75923,"date":"2026-01-11T22:00:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T13:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/11\/underground-church-early-rain-leaders-detained-china-crackdown"},"modified":"2026-01-11T22:00:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T13:00:27","slug":"underground-church-says-leaders-detained-as-china-steps-up-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=75923","title":{"rendered":"Underground church says leaders detained as China steps up crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Early Rain pastor said to be among those held in sweep that followed arrests of members of other unregistered churches<\/p>\n<p>Leaders of a prominent underground church have been detained in south-west China, according to a church statement, the latest blow in what appears to be a sweeping crackdown on unregistered Christian groups in the country.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, Li Yingqiang, the leader of the Early Rain Covenant Church, was taken by police from his home in Deyang, a small city in Sichuan province, according to the statement. Li\u2019s wife, Zhang Xinyue, has also been detained, along with two other church members: Dai Zhichao, a pastor; and Ye Fenghua, a lay member. At least a further four members were taken and later released, while some others remain out of contact.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/11\/underground-church-early-rain-leaders-detained-china-crackdown\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Early Rain pastor said to be among those held in sweep that followed arrests of members of other unregistered churchesLeaders of a prominent underground church have been detained in south-west China, according to a church statement, the latest blow in &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3586,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,370,53,371,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-christianity","category-human-rights","category-religion","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3586"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75923"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75924,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75923\/revisions\/75924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}