### Cheng Yongbing
Cheng Yongbing is a leader of an unregistered house church in Kaili City, Guizhou Province, who was formally arrested in May 2026 on charges of fraud and “organizing minors to carry out activities disrupting public order.”
**The Kaili arrests**
In May 2026, news emerged from Kaili City, in Guizhou’s Qiandongnan Prefecture, that six Christians had been formally arrested, according to the rights group Weiquanwang. The six — Wei Yongqiang, He Jinbao, Quan Xiaolong, Long Jian, Cheng Yongbing, and Zhou Guixia — are leaders of the same unregistered church.
The case drew attention for the novelty of the charges. Prosecutors accused the six of organizing Sunday school classes, sharing the Gospel with children, and allowing families to worship together — ordinary church life that the authorities classified as “organizing minors to carry out activities disrupting public order.” That provision has traditionally been applied only when minors are incited to fight, steal, or engage in conduct that genuinely threatens public safety, according to religious-freedom analysts. The fraud charge, likewise, has become a recurring tool against unregistered churches: voluntary tithes and offerings are treated as “illegal income.” A local court in the same city had handed down a twelve-year fraud sentence to an Adventist preacher in 2021 on that basis.
The families retained lawyers, but the Kaili procuratorate approved all six arrests at once without hearing the legal opinions the lawyers submitted, according to Bitter Winter. As of the most recent reports, the six remain in detention awaiting trial.
**Pattern and context**
The arrests fit a wider pattern in Kaili, which has become a center of anti-Christian enforcement, and a national shift toward criminalizing routine religious activity involving children — an escalation that followed revisions to the Public Security Administrative Punishments Law. Legal experts in China have raised concerns about both the substance of the charges and the handling of the case.
**Status:** In detention awaiting trial (reported May 2026; status confirmed as of mid-2026 reporting). UNVERIFIED: exact detention facility, trial date, any sentence. Do not infer.
**[INSERT RECIPROCAL LINK: “Related case file: Cheng Yongbing — Media Profile & Archive” linking to the Media page]**
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Media archive: Cheng Yongbing — Media Profile & Archive — Media Archive