Wang Yi was waiting for his arrest. Months before authorities swept into his church in the city of Chengdu in December 2018 and detained him, the outspoken pastor had prepared a six-page, handwritten statement denying the allegations he was sure the Chinese Communist Party would make against him for his work at one of China’s best-known underground churches.
In the end, the Chinese government didn’t even bother making a public case against him. Wang was sentenced to nine years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power” and “illegal business activities” following closed-door proceedings.
The pastor, who is the founder of Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu will also be “stripped of political rights” for three years and have approximately $7,200 of his assets seized.
The lengthy sentence, and secret proceedings, show that the Chinese Communist Party feels threatened by the rapid spread of Christianity in the country—especially from churches that operate outside of the government’s rules, experts say.
Fenggang Yang, Director of the Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University told TIME that there are about 116 million Protestant Christians in mainland China in 2020.
Compare that with an estimated 90 million members in the Communist Party, and government leaders believe they have cause for concern.