House to Vote on Resolution Urging Trump to Confront Xi on China’s Political Prisoners

Rep. Chris Smith is calling on the president to help free political prisoners ahead of the U.S.–China summit.

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) (C) discusses the Chinese communist regime's system of forced organ harvesting, at a Heritage Foundation event in Washington on April 7, 2026. Irene Luo/The Epoch Times

The House of Representatives is set to vote on a resolution urging President Donald Trump to make the freedom of political prisoners in China a priority in talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, including during this week’s summit in Beijing.

H.Res.1259, introduced by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, names five individuals that he said were “unfairly punished” by Beijing for exercising freedom of speech and religion.

The vote is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, ahead of Trump’s two-day trip to China, The Epoch Times has learned.

“Shamefully, the People’s Republic of China currently detains thousands of political and religious prisoners, which include American citizens and the family members of U.S. nationals,” Smith told The Epoch Times.

He said the resolution calls out the Chinese regime’s “abysmal record of human rights abuses and arbitrary detentions” and urges the U.S. president to raise these concerns at their upcoming meeting.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been waging a war against faith for more than 100 years, with successive Party leaders having launched repeated campaigns to regulate, suppress, and control religious groups in China.

In March, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) again called on the U.S. government to designate China as a country of particular concern over the suppression, which one of the commissioners described as “across the board” and “systematic.”

The five individuals mentioned in the resolution are Chinese pastors Jin Mingri and Gao Quanfu; Gao’s wife, Pang Yu; retired Uyghur medical doctor Dr. Gulshan Abbas; and Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai.

Jimmy Lai outside West Kowloon Magistrates' Court in Hong Kong, on Sept. 18, 2020. Sung Pi-lung/The Epoch Times

In May last year, Gao, pastor and founder of a house church called Light of Zion Church, was detained at his home and accused of “using superstitious activities to undermine the implementation of law,” according to the USCIRF.

Two months later, his wife, Pang, another church leader, was also detained. The resolution noted that she has since been “denied access to critical prescription medication.”

Their son, Gao Pu, confirmed the concerns to The Epoch Times.

In two separate X posts on May 10, Gao Pu said the charges against his parents were false and described his mother’s detention—now in its 337th day—as “beyond inhumane” because of her heart conditions, low blood pressure, and severe anxiety.

“My parents are peaceful Christians who have spent their lives serving others, preaching the Gospel, praying for our country, and helping believers across China. They never promoted violence, political extremism, or hatred. Their real ‘crime’ is refusing to place their faith and church completely under CCP control,” Gao Pu wrote.

In October 2025, Jin, founder of another house church known as Zion Church, was detained at his home as part of a broader operation by Chinese authorities that also led to the detention of nearly 30 pastors and church members.

Abbas has been imprisoned for nearly 3,000 days, and her detention is widely believed to be linked to her sister Rushan Abbas’s human rights advocacy activities in the United States.

Rushan Abbas, executive director of the Campaign for Uyghurs, speaks during the China Forum at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington on Oct. 27, 2025. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

Lai, an outspoken critic of the CCP and founder of the now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, was sentenced in February to 20 years in prison under Hong Kong’s national security law.

More than 100 lawmakers from both parties expressed support for Lai’s freedom in a May 7 letter to Trump.

Smith’s resolution also urges Trump to “seek verifiable proof of life and access to independent legal counsel, family communication, and medical care for such detainees.”

In China, some political prisoners are held incommunicado, leaving their families without any information about their fate or even whether they are alive. One of the best-known examples is prominent Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who has been missing for more than eight years.

A recent example of China restricting family access to political prisoners is Wang Youmei, a Falun Gong practitioner detained by police in the central Chinese city of Wuhan on April 15. Her daughter, Alisa Zhou, a U.S. citizen and accountant in Maryland, previously told The Epoch Times that the family has been unable to visit Wang while she is in custody.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice grounded in the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. Introduced to the Chinese public in 1992, the practice had spread widely by the late 1990s, with official estimates placing the number of practitioners in China at more than 70 million.

In 1999, the CCP launched a brutal campaign to eradicate the practice, believing its popularity was a threat to the CCP’s authority. Since then, hundreds of thousands of practitioners have been detained and subjected to torture, with thousands dying as a result of abuse while in custody, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center. Due to strict censorship in China, the true death toll is hard to determine; it is likely far higher.

The Falun Dafa Information Center, a U.S.-based human rights group, urged Trump to raise nine cases of imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners with immediate relatives in the United States who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

Zhou Deyong and his wife, You Ling, in Death Valley National Park, Calif., in January 2021. Courtesy of Zhou You

The nine include Liu Aihua, whose son Steven Wang dances with Shen Yun Performing Arts in New York, and Zhou Deyong, a geological engineer and the father of a Florida resident.

In a letter released on Monday, Smith called for the State Department to set up a priority list of political prisoners to be raised at senior-level diplomatic talks, with both Gao and Zhou included.

“The United States must continue to stand firm in its mission to defend political and religious freedoms around the globe, and this legislation reaffirms our Nation’s commitment to those unjustly detained in China,” Smith told The Epoch Times.