The "Two Crimes and Two Punishments" Before Childbirth and the Organizational Anxiety of a Totalitarian Society: A Review of the Chengdu Early Rain Church Case of Dai Zhichao Being Transferred to the Procuratorate

Title: The "Two Crimes and Two Punishments" Before Childbirth and the Organizational Anxiety of a Totalitarian Society: A Review of the Chengdu Early Rain Church Case of Dai Zhichao Being Transferred to the Procuratorate

Introduction:

The case of Dai Zhichao, a preacher from the Chengdu Early Rain Church, has been transferred to the Deyang Procuratorate after being secretly detained for half a year. The special case teams from both locations added the crime of "organizing illegal gatherings" at the last minute. This article deconstructs the logic behind this "combination of virtual and real punches" and how Liu Guangqiang, the Secretary of the Deyang Municipal Party Committee, has turned the suppression of religion into a personal political capital.

Article:

In the context of Chinese politics in July 2026, the judicial process is not a tool for upholding justice, but rather a precise surgical knife used by local bureaucrats to deal with independent faith networks.

On July 19, a message from an underground family church in the southwest confirmed this systemic squeeze. The case of Dai Zhichao, a preacher from the Chengdu Early Rain Covenant Church, was formally transferred to the Deyang People's Procuratorate in Sichuan Province for review and prosecution after experiencing a long period of cross-regional secret detention and obscure document operations. However, at the end of the investigation, the case-handling authorities suddenly and unusually added a new crime

• "organizing illegal gatherings"
• in addition to the original serious political crime of "inciting subversion of state power".

At this point, it has been 180 days since Dai Zhichao lost contact in Chengdu. His wife, Lu Lingzhi, is pregnant with their sixth child. During the past half year of being cut off from the outside world, she has gone through the difficulties of pregnancy alone, and now she must face the possibility of her husband receiving a heavy sentence alone.

This "two crimes and two punishments" transferred to the procuratorate at the last minute has torn open the carefully wrapped legal cloak of the Sichuan political and legal system. It is not an extension of the law, but a black farce pieced together by local bureaucrats to complete the conviction quota after the procedure and evidence chain have collapsed.

The addition of the final judicial chapter: the "combination of virtual and real punches" under a guilty conscience

In the eyes of legal professionals, this sudden addition of a light crime before the transfer of the case for prosecution exposes the bottom card of the joint special case team under extreme anxiety.

The crime of "inciting subversion of state power" is a typical political crime, which often lacks substantial behavioral evidence in actual operation and becomes a rogue statement. The two local police forces have secretly detained Dai Zhichao for half a year, and if they only rely on a few Sunday sermon manuscripts and online prayer letters, it will be difficult to form a closed loop in the procuratorate's litigation review. If only one empty political crime is charged, the case faces a high risk of being dismissed during the judicial review stage.

To ensure a physical conviction, the case-handling authorities used the crime of "organizing illegal gatherings" as a safety net at the last minute.

The crime of inciting subversion is a "political card" used to elevate the case to a higher level and cut off external legal support; the crime of organizing illegal gatherings is a "factual card" used to forcibly implement a physical conviction. This combination of political and factual crimes is a typical example of "politicizing legal issues". The authoritarian system must use specific behavioral crimes to cover up the collapse of the persecution in terms of procedure and evidence chain.

Cross-regional black box: the completely hollowed-out procedural justice

The starting point of this legal disaster is a cross-regional arrest that exceeded jurisdiction.

On January 6, 2026, the police from Chengdu and Deyang jointly took action, directly breaking into the office of the Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, taking Dai Zhichao away by force, and thoroughly searching his home. In the following half year, the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Law regarding the right of families of detained persons to be informed were turned into a blank in the document flow of the two local police forces. The family and the intervening defense lawyers did not receive any formal legal documents.

This cross-regional joint case handling has objectively become a firewall for local authorities to evade legal supervision. The intersection of police forces from the two cities has made the responsible subject ambiguous. When lawyers go to inquire, the two sides often push the responsibility to each other, resulting in the complete hollowing out of the right to know and the right to defense for the detained citizens.

In the current political ecology, the law is not a criterion, but a tool for local administrative power to maintain stability that can be manipulated at will.

The most efficient loyalty and the organizational anxiety of totalitarian rulers

Why did a young preacher without any weapons or political program trigger the most sensitive stability maintenance nerve of the local government?

Looking back at Dai Zhichao's past decade, he followed Pastor Wang Yi to study in 2013 and later served the church full-time in Bazhong and Chengdu. He experienced the "12·9 Church Incident" in 2018, long-term family soft detention, and even being followed and beaten whenever he left his residential area. The layered addition of charges behind him is a deep-seated pathological fear of the authoritarian system towards the unofficial organization of civil society.

In the absolute control logic of the totalitarian system, any organization that does not accept the party's absolute leadership is a potential threat to the security of the regime. Christianity has two core characteristics that directly touch the soft spot of totalitarian rulers:

The most efficient spiritual loyalty: totalitarian rulers require everyone to absolutely obey in thought, but for Christians, "Christ is the Lord" is the only highest faith. When official instructions conflict with the faith baseline, they choose to follow their faith. This spiritual independence is a thorough non-violent rebellion in the eyes of the regime that requires absolute control.

The strong organizational ability of civil society: what the system fears most is not a loose network of netizens, but a civilian network with high cohesion, self-connection, and mutual assistance. The family church has established a highly sticky social autonomous group outside the official system. This non-official organizational mobilization ability has caused extreme anxiety for the rulers who are used to eliminating all independent intermediate organizations.

Ultimate accountability: the political capital of local leaders

Looking through the entire decision-making chain, this systemic persecution of cross-regional police mobilization, over-time black box detention, and fabricating "pocket crimes" at the last minute is absolutely not a decision that can be made by grassroots case handlers. The decision-making source behind it directly points to the local top leader.

As the highest ruler of Deyang, Deyang Municipal Party Committee Secretary Liu Guangqiang is directly responsible for this political case.

In several work conferences of the Deyang authorities in the past few quarters, Liu Guangqiang has repeatedly emphasized the need to crack down on "illegal religious organizations". In the current political ecology, elevating the normal religious gatherings of the family church to "inciting subversion of state power" not only demonstrates the local party committee's political awareness of maintaining "political security", but also allows the local stability maintenance system to gain huge financial allocations and personnel quotas.

For the sake of so-called political achievements and currying favor with the higher-ups, local leaders do not hesitate to blatantly trample on the bottom line of the rule of law, brutally persecute religious beliefs, and even create humanitarian family tragedies that leave pregnant women to give birth alone. This political black account must ultimately be recorded on the head of the local top leader Liu Guangqiang.

Now, this case file with the traces of the two local police forces' "pocket crimes" and the will of the higher-ups has been formally submitted to the Deyang People's Procuratorate. This thick case file not only records the faith persistence of a young preacher but also records the black marks written by Deyang Municipal Party Committee Secretary Liu Guangqiang and his team of ruling officials on the account book of the rule of law and human rights.