"They will especially hunt those in Beijing," a Hong Kong source told CT. "I t took them by surprise that there were so many Christians in China. Every week pastors are arrested and thrown in jail. The communists see Christians a s a threat because there are [more] Christians than party members."

China has more than 15 million Christians in government-sanction churches but as many as 80 million in unregistered congregations branded by the communist regime as "illegal cults," though estimates vary widely.

Fifty or more Christians were arrested in January after communist leaders viewed a new video, "The Cross: Jesus in China," produced by a California-base d group, China Soul for Christ Foundation, CT said.

The Chinese officials also were briefed on a new book that shows the extraordinary growth of the church in China and its potential to transform the nation in coming decades, "Jesus in Beijing," by former Time magazine Beijing bureau chief David Aikman.

The digitally formatted video, which has been widely distributed across China, has been classified as "political matter" and confiscated by police along with other Christian literature, the CT report said.

In January police arrested three prominent Protestant leaders from Henan province, Qiao Chunling, 41, Deborah Xu Yongling, 58, and Zeng Guangbo, 35. Guangbo escaped two days after his arrest and remains in hiding, CT said.

The crackdown, which began at China's annual National Religious Working Conference, could last for 30 days and become as brutal as the repression of the Falun Gong sect, which has resulted in hundreds of deaths, according to a watchdog group.

Liu Zhenying a Chinese Christian leader imprisoned many times who now lives in Germany, told CT China's communist officials are trying to split unofficial groups any way they can.

"They tried to isolate one house-church group, now to single them out. By doing that, they can divide house-church unity," he said in an interview at the recent National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. "This purpose is very obvious, very evil. We really prayed the eyesight, the insight, the discernment of the eagle to really clearly see this trap of Satan."

Liu, better known as Brother Yun, said China uses "international propaganda" to deceive Westerners and promote China's policy stance toward religion.

Top Christian leaders are invited to travel through China to see first-hand how the government allows churches to operate openly, but this does not present the full picture, he told CT.

The Chinese government considers all Protestant churches outside the official government-controlled Three-Self Patriotic Movement to be subversive. The official churches are restricted, to varying degrees around the country, in their doctrine and practice. Catholics also are restricted to a government-controlled church, which is not allowed to recognize the authority of the pope.

As WorldNetDaily reported, a video recently was smuggled out of China documenting the destruction of an unregistered church in Zhejiang Province, according to Voice of the Martyrs.

In November, Chinese officials closed 125 places of worship, affected 3,000 Christians.

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