Unable to buy a train ticket, or even see a doctor at a hospital, a Chinese pastor found that even after his release from prison, he is not quite free.
The Reverend John Sanqiang Cao (曹三強) was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison after returning from a missionary trip in Myanmar. Now in his hometown of Changsha in southern Hunan Province, he is without any legal documentation in his country, unable to access even the most basic services without a Chinese identification.
“I told them I’m a second-[class] Chinese citizen, I cannot do this, I cannot do that,” Cao said in an interview. “I’m released. I’m a free citizen. Why should there be so many restrictions upon me?”
Photo provided by Cao Family via AP
Cao, who was born and raised in Changsha, had dedicated his life to spreading Christianity in China, where the religion is strictly regulated. He had studied in the US, married an American woman and started a family, but said he felt a calling to return to his home country and spread the faith.
It is a risky mission. Christianity in China is allowed only in state-sponsored churches, where the Chinese Communist Party decides how Scripture should be interpreted. Anything else, including clandestine “house” churches and unofficial Bible schools, is considered illegal, although it was once tolerated by local officials.
Cao was undeterred, citing the courage of Chinese Christians he had met who spent time in prison for their faith. During his years in China, he said he had set up 50 Bible study schools across the country.
In the years leading up to his arrest, he had started bringing Chinese missionaries to parts of northern Myanmar affected by the country’s civil war. They focused on relief work, campaigning against drug use, and setting up schools in areas bordering China.
It was while coming back from one of these crossings that he was detained in 2017. He was sentenced to seven years on a charge of “organizing others to illegally cross the border,” which is usually reserved for human traffickers.
His family and supporters had advocated for his sentence to be reduced, but to no avail.
Cao was a prisoner of conscience, said the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which also called for his freedom.
After completing his sentence, Cao faces another major obstacle.
He said that police who came to his mother’s house in 2006 took away her “hukou” (戶口) registration book, which had also included Cao.
Every child born in China is registered in the hukou, an identification system through which social benefits are allocated by geography. Later in life, it is required to apply for a national ID card, which is used in everything from obtaining a telephone number to public health insurance.
Cao said that police told him they would help his mother update the hukou, but later he found out while updating her registration that they removed his name.
Cao never took US citizenship because of his calling, spending his time between the two countries.
He had kept his US permanent residency throughout that time, although he said that is not accepted as ID in China.
He was traveling on his Chinese passport, but did not realize how serious it was that he did not no longer had the hukou until much later.
In prison, his Chinese passport had expired, and he could not renew it, he said.
He has been to the police station many times since his release, and had even hired a lawyer, but the police had not given him a satisfactory answer as to why his records no longer exist, he said.
A police officer at the Dingwangtai police station in Changsha, where Cao’s hukou registration is supposed to be, said he did not know how to address Cao’s claims.
“Even if he went to prison, he should still have a hukou,” he said, while refusing to give his name because he was not authorized to talk to media.
Cao’s two adults sons were able to visit him this month, spending two weeks with their father.
Cao said he wants to join them and his wife in the US, but it is unclear how he can do that.
“I moved from a smaller prison ... to come to a bigger prison,” he said.
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