The sound of church bells once tolled through the misty mountains of Burma's Chin State. Today, that sacred sound has been replaced with the whistle of artillery shells.
In the rubble of where steeples once stood, the smell of smoke mixes with distant weeping. Bibles lay open, their pages blackened and words unreadable. Blood-stained pews and burned crosses mark the ruins of Christian villages bombed by Burma's own military since the 2021 coup.
Since toppling the National League for Democracy, Burma's military, known as the Tatmadaw, has waged war not only on democracy but on faith itself. And its campaign has grown into an assault to erase Christians from the map.
In 2021, Om Kee, a young minister, was found dead by a roadside with a bullet lodged in his skull after being abducted and tortured by Tatmadaw forces.
That same year, thirty-year-old Pastor Cung Biak Hum was gunned down in the street. His body was still warm as Tatmadaw soldiers stood over him. One bent down, seized his hand, and sliced off his ring finger to claim a golden band. A few streets away, his pregnant wife and two sons waited for a father who would never return.
In January 2023, two Christian pastors were among five citizens killed during an airstrike on Lay Wah village. Days later, the Catholic Assumption Church in Chan Thar village was reduced to rubble.
These are not isolated tragedies but a pattern of intentional terror. Across the Christian Chin, Kayin, and Kachin communities, the junta cloaks its motivation behind Buddhist nationalism.
More than 6,000 civilians are dead, with upwards of three million displaced since 2021. Churches have transformed from sacred sanctuaries into piles of ash. Out of 107 religious buildings destroyed, 67 have been Christian churches. Eyewitnesses report that soldiers routinely claim churches as military bases and often bomb religious gatherings.
If religious leaders aren't killed outright, they endure false imprisonment and torture. Falsely accused of terrorism, pastor Hkalam Samson spent over a year behind bars for his faith. Released in July 2024, Samson's persecution remains no anomaly but a mirror to countless others silenced for worshipping freely.
The Tatmadaw's slaughter of thousands and exile of 700,000 echoes in the same brutal tactics employed today as in the 2016 Rohingya Genocide.
But behind Burma's war on faith today stands its greatest enabler: Beijing.
China is Burma's lifeline. A major player in President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative, the China-Burma Economic Corridor fuels Burmese aggression with Chinese dollars. Publicly calling for dialogue, China privately funds the very regime.
China's relationship with Burma is purely transactional. Burma provides China with a strategic corridor to the Indian Ocean and access to energy pipelines that bypass the South China Sea. In exchange, China props up Burma's regime and fuels suppression of Christians.
A UN report asserts that since the 2021 coup, Burma has imported at least $1 billion in arms and materials to manufacture weapons. China has directly supplied nearly $240 million, much of it from state-owned entities, while waging its own persecution of over a million Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Beijing has blocked international condemnation of Burma's violations at the UN Security Council, shielding the junta from accountability.
Without China, Burma's military machine would grind to a halt.
China's technological influence is central to Burma's reign of terror. Huawei's Safe Cities CCTV Systems assist in silencing dissenters and jamming interception channels, exporting authoritarianism.
China's looming shadow over Burma's shoulder is a concern for both Southeast Asia and here at home. At the doorstep of the Indo-Pacific, Burma's war against its own people signals the expansion of authoritarianism in a region the U.S. has vowed to secure.
International security begins with securing the protection of religious liberty and democracy everywhere, for everyone. Silence is no longer a viable solution. Ignoring the suffering of Burma's Christians signals to Beijing a surrender of moral leadership -- but it is not too late.
Washington must challenge China's duplicity. For when the right to worship freely is destroyed, global peace deteriorates.
While China fuels suppression of thought and exploitation of Christians, the U.S. must stop enabling them through inaction. Expanding humanitarian aid to displaced communities through the UN and faith-based organizations will empower progress. Sanctions must explicitly target Chinese entities supplying arms to the junta. If China claims to be a partner in global order, it cannot bankroll a campaign that burns churches and murders religious leaders.
Christians across Burma are not nameless. They are the face of faith under fire.
Defiance of Tatmadaw injustice demands more than sympathy. It demands solidarity.
If the world remains quiet, the church bells of the Chin State will never ring again. And as freedom's tune dies in one corner of the world, its echo fades elsewhere.