First, the good news. Zhou Jinxia, the irrepressible 53-year-old Christian woman from Dalian who feels called by God to tell Xi Jinping and his wife that they should receive God in their hearts, has been released from jail on December 4. Second, the less reassuring part. Zhou told her friends that she plans to continue answering her call from God, although she has been warned by the authorities that in this case she will be arrested again and she is kept under strict surveillance.
“Bitter Winter” reported on Zhou in March 2022, after she was detained once again on February 2022 and deported from Beijing back to Dalian for “picking quarrels and provoking troubles.” She went to the Xinhuamen, the entrance gate of the Zhongnanhai area in Beijing where the top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party live, preparing to welcome President Xi Jinping back from the Winter Olympics and tell him he should accept God and publicly repent. She was then formally arrested and on November 9, 2022, was sentenced to two years and six months in prison by the Xigang District Court of Dalian city, Liaoning province.
As many others in China, Zhou became a dissident because her home was forcibly and illegally demolished in 2009 to build a square in the location and all her furniture was buried in the rubble. She became part of the movement petitioning the authorities against these illegal demolitions and was detained together with her brother.
Zhou became persuaded that Christianity, rather than multiplying the legal appeals, was the answer to forced demolitions and corruptions, and started organizing prayer meetings in the square where her home once stood. She also believed that to end corruption, local authorities should convert to Christianity. She started appearing at the entrance of the Dalian Municipal Government and Municipal Party Committee calling to repentance and conversion Dalian Mayor Li Wancai and Municipal Party Committee Secretary Tang Jun. She was repeatedly beaten and detained.
After Xi Jinping was inaugurated as President of China in 2013, Zhou applauded his statements against corruption but believed they would become effective only if Xi converted to Christianity. From 2014 to 2020, she went to Beijing a dozen times and tried to intercept the president showing him signs calling Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan to repent and convert. In October 2020, she settled in the Beijing area to continue her efforts more systematically. In 2021, the police expelled her from her home. All her efforts resulted in times of administrative detention. She was even brought to a psychiatric hospital, where the doctors concluded, however, that she was not suffering of any mental problem.
Zhou claims that her signs were seen by Xi Jinping some fifty times. The sentence she received on November 9, 2022, was the harsher, and she was taken to Dalian City Detention Center to serve her term.
Co-religionists in Dalian told “Bitter Winter” that Zhou understands that, humanly speaking, chances that Xi and his wife may embrace Christianity are slim. However, she quotes the Bible verses teaching that what is impossible for human beings is always possible for God.
bitterwinter.org