Chinese Communist Officials Deport 13 South Korean Missionary Families

Communist officials in China deported 13 families in 2017 who had been living and working in the country as missionaries.

According to The Christian Post, the Communist officials said the missionaries were “illegally” living in the country because of their Christian work.

A Korean missionary who was also deported detailed the 2017 deportation recently in an interview.

He told the International Christian Concern that in 2016 a missionary leader arrived at a Chinese station and was immediately arrested. Later the rest of the mission team of 13 South Korean families was taken into police custody.

Police charged the groups with “being missionaries” and told them they were illegally in the country.

Chinese law says that foreigners may not start religious groups or try to convert people.

The Korean missionary says, however, that the families were teaching the Bible to North Koreans who regularly visit China. He says they were not trying to force conversion on them.

In January 2017, the 13 families were deported.

Later, police closed all the Korean-Chinese churches in Dandong. The ICC says officials had hacked their email accounts and listened in on phone calls in the group of missionaries.

“Such act of tapping the communication is presumed to be an attempt of Xi Jinping’s government to demonstrate its power in the border area, where they see the…