Americans Are Embracing Communism. Pastor Ezra Jin Felt Its Iron Fist.

Pastor Ezra Jin’s feet touched American soil on July 3 for the first time since 2018. For preaching the gospel in Communist China, Jin spent 266 days in a Chinese prison. Two days after his return, the Democratic Socialists of America announced that it was the largest socialist organization in American history.

Some DSA members have also expressed support for the Chinese Communist Party. Public listings by the advocacy group Friends of Socialist China indicate that several DSA-involved individuals signed a statement pledging support for the communist government.

Signatories listed on the group’s website include Mirah Wood from the United States, who is listed as “Co-Chair Middle East & Africa Sub-Committee, DSA International Committee,” as well as John McGrath from Britain, who is described as being on the “DSA International Committee (anti-war).” Seven other signers said they were members of the DSA or listed the DSA as their organization.

DSA International did not respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment by the time of publication.

New supporters of Friends of Socialist China affirm a statement found on the group’s site: “We, Friends of Socialist China, aim to support the People’s Republic of China and to promote understanding of Chinese socialism.”

The statement goes on to say, “As Marxists, we believe that although capitalism has brought about unprecedented progress in the development of the productive forces, its expansion throughout the world has directly led to the most appalling crimes against humanity.”

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Friends of Socialist China’s mission, in part, is to counter “propaganda” that paints socialism as characterized by prison camps, dictatorship, corruption, thought control, and poverty.

For Jin and eight other pastors of Zion Church, Chinese socialism meant prison conditions so miserable that he doesn’t like talking about his experience. His relatives learned much about his prison conditions from others.

Jin’s Experience of Chinese Prison

“Generally, what we’ve pictured is that it’s extremely hot,” Grace Jin Drexel, Jin’s daughter, said. “It’s extremely cold in the winter, extremely hot in the summer. They don’t have any sort of air conditioning or fans or anything like that.”

A windowless hole in the wall allows air, as well as rain, to flow into the room. Prisoners sleep on the ground in such close quarters that if they turn in their sleep, they bump the people next to them. A day’s rations consist of leaves boiled in water and a piece of meat in the evening, according to Drexel.

“There’s interrogations, and during interrogations, my father said that he was never tortured, but he has seen cellmates that were,” Drexel said.

After spending nearly nine months in a Chinese detention facility, the 57-year-old pastor was much thinner and had lost all of his hair. He looked so different that Drexel didn’t recognize him at first, she said in an interview with CBS News.

Still, Jin said he was treated far better than other prisoners, which he attributes to the international attention his imprisonment received.

Thanks to Drexel’s continuous advocacy, President Donald Trump raised the issue of Jin’s release with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Beijing summit in May.

Jin’s crime wasn’t announced until several days after the Chinese Communist Party had given the police an arrest warrant and had him detained. The police charged him for “the illegal use of information online.” 

The head pastor and founder of Zion Church had streamed religious services online for members of his “underground” church—meaning a church that it is not approved by the Chinese Communist Party.

Later, the police changed his crime and said he was instead charged for “illegal business operations and fraud.” One CCP tactic to persecute non-state-sanctioned churches is to charge them with fraud for receiving tithes and donations, according to Drexel.

“That’s really how it separates from a normal society and the Chinese society, and that’s why many people call it a totalitarian government, in which it tries to control everything,” Drexel said. “Especially in this case, they’re using the control of religious leaders to then control even what you believe in, like your soul, basically.”

Communism Crushes Liberty

It’s not just religion, but also free speech that the CCP wants to repress. Media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who founded the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and frequently criticized the CCP, was arrested in 2020 under China’s national security law. In February 2026, the 78-year-old was sentenced to 20 years in prison for printing “seditious publications” and for colluding with a foreign country.

“He doesn’t want political power,” said Mark Simon, a former top executive at Apple Daily and Lai’s right-hand man. “Jimmy had two things he wanted: press freedom and the rule of law, the Basic Law. But for them to completely take Hong Kong, they had to destroy that, and that meant they had to take down Jimmy.”

Although Trump was able to push Xi to release Jin, Lai is still imprisoned. Both Simon and Trump say that it will be difficult to secure freedom for the pro-democracy advocate.

Lai is one of many who are suffering under the boot of Chinese communism, according to Elizabeth Spalding, the founding director of the Victims of Communism Museum in Washington, D.C.

“People need to understand that for every Pastor Ezra Jin, for every Jimmy Lai, there are so many others who are still in prison, who are being persecuted, who are part of a systemic, regime-wide—because it’s communist—repression of religion in the People’s Republic of China,” Spalding said.

Even with the rise of the DSA and communist sympathizers, America is far from becoming a communist regime, according to Spalding. She said Americans should fight to keep it that way. 

“We’re not the former Soviet Union. We’re not the People’s Republic of China,” Spalding said. “And we don’t want it. We shouldn’t want it. And if people are thinking that overthrowing our institutions is going to fix things that some people think are wrong, they are incorrect.”

Drexel said that her father’s heart “is really with the other eight” pastors still in prison, and that he has been so busy traveling the country advocating for their release that he hasn’t even had time to get blood work done.

Socialism on the Rise in the United States

But the DSA’s “Workers Deserve More” program makes it clear that the group aims to reconstruct American political institutions by abolishing the Senate and replacing the president and Supreme Court. A recent CNN poll indicated that one-third of Democrats identify as democratic socialists, the ideology the DSA represents.

The Democratic Socialists of America organization did not return the Daily Signal’s request for comment by the time of publication.

Simon said Americans who call for communism don’t know what communist leaders actually want to do.

“It’s about providing a lifestyle for themselves off the backs of others,” Simon said. “In other words, what they accuse the billionaires and the millionaires of doing, they’re doing themselves, they’re just doing it with government money.”

According to Spalding, as long as America clings to her founding principles, the United States is far from becoming the CCP.

“We have a regime that is rooted in the most principled, most practical institutions to go with our principles, and that’s the solution,” Spalding said. “That still provides the solution going forwards.”

Americans who support communism or socialism advocate for the very structures they say they’re opposed to, Simon said. And the final result wouldn’t be good.

“People have to understand, if they’re going to be communist, if you say it’ll turn into China, [that’s] probably not for a while. But it’ll get there,” Simon said.

While America is far from communism, the experience of communism is never far from the mind of Jin or his family.

“They’re asking for your freedom,” Drexel said. “Everyone is going to paint a beautiful picture of why the government needs more and more power. But eventually, you might find yourself without any freedom.”