A 40-year thaw of political relations between North America and China is freezing over, throttling Mennonite church-to-church relationships carefully nurtured in that time.

Before 1979, a 30-year climate of mistrust and isolation prevented bridge building. That same year, Goshen College President J. Lawrence Burkholder and the Sichuan Provincial Education Bureau signed their first exchange agreement, heralding an era of connection between Chinese and North American Mennonites.

Mennonite schools, mission agencies and Mennonite Central Committee enjoyed academic and religious exchanges for the next 40 years. Hundreds of Chinese and North American Mennonites became friends. Goshen, along with Eastern Mennonite and Bluffton universities, became familiar names at universities across Sichuan Province.

English teachers from North America serving with Mennonite Partners in China were coveted by schools in China. MPC is a program of Mennonite mission boards and MCC.

China closed its doors in 2019 due to the pandemic, ending exchanges with North America, including with Mennonites.

Today, news in North America routinely portrays China as bent on world domination. The situation in China is similar; North America is blamed for everything that’s wrong with the world.

Myrrl Byler, retired director of MPC, said North American Mennonites were excited to live and work in China in the 1980s and ’90s. He first went to China in 1987 and was in the country during the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

He has over 30 years of experience with Mennonite exchange in China and is writing a book about it. Crossing the River by Feeling for Stones: Mennonite Engagement in China 1901-2020 will be published later this year.

He observed the environment is radically different now. During a recent monthlong visit, he saw only “a handful of Western faces, far fewer than when I first went to China in the 1980s,” he said. “Interest in even visiting China has almost vanished.” Chinese friends and colleagues corroborate his observations.

A former government official who assisted MPC shared a poignant moment. “His young granddaughter came home from school and called Americans ‘evil demons,’ ” Byler said. The slur reminded him of attitudes from the 1960s and ’70s.

Academics and the Protestant church community feel acutely the loss of MPC and the connection it offered with the West. Increased control and supervision by government authorities make it difficult for Mennonite visitors from North America to freely interact with Chinese believers.

Jeanette Hanson — who worked in China from 1991 to 2015 with her husband, Todd, and has continued to visit China since 2019 in her role as ­director of Mennonite Church Canada’s International Witness — concurs with Byler’s view of the political chill’s effect on church-to-church relations.

Both registered and unregistered churches in China have faced increased tension as officials clamp down on freedom to conduct worship and normal church activities.

Byler avoided church services or formal meetings with pastors. Such attention might put his hosts at risk.

“The vast majority of Chinese citizens seem content with their lives and what the government provides for them,” he said. “They feel the government’s surveillance technology and information-gathering methods keep their cities safe, unlike the violence in American cities they see on the news.”

The public largely accepts the narrative they are given about the world, including that the United States is to blame for nearly every problem, whether that’s the Russia-Ukraine war or violence in the Middle East.

But within a population of 1.4 billion, those who are not content represent a significant minority. Among the strongest critics are some pastors, academics and ethnic minorities.

“The exodus out of China during the past few years is noticeable in other countries,” Byler said. People with money buy apartments and land in countries like Thailand and place their children in international schools.

“In the past two years, more than 100,000 Chinese have crossed into the U.S. illegally and sought political asylum, although the U.S. is now attempting to repatriate some of these persons to China,” he said.

The exodus of Christians, including pastors, has left many congregations without adequate leadership.

Byler has heard from pastors who fear imprisonment and who have been stripped of their church positions and placed under investigation. The strain of constant surveillance, increased involvement of government officials in churches and seminaries and concern about families and children take a heavy toll. Some pastors know peers who have been arrested.

Jeanette Hanson said the Chinese church is no longer growing like it did in the 1990s and early 2000s.

“Attendance in Chinese churches I connect with has not rebounded since the easing of COVID restrictions,” she said.

However, she’s also heard that many leaders who associated with Mennonite agencies and schools in the past few decades remain with their congregations. They are committed to weather the shift, just as their mentors dealt with the challenges of a previous era.

While active exchange between China and North America ceased in 2019, there is a large diaspora of Chinese in North America with whom the church can connect.

“Many ethnic Chinese churches in the West, several of whom relate to Mennonite conferences, are experiencing growth via people who are leaving mainland China,” Byler said. He believes North American anger directed at Chinese immigrants is “an opportunity for our churches to be present, listening, supporting and advocating for those who have chosen to live in North America.”

As China increases its global influence, engagement with Chinese people also represents an opportunity for Mennonites around the world.

“Mennonite pastors and churches in Southeast Asia and parts of Africa are interested in establishing ties to their brothers and sisters in China,” Hanson said.

Pastors from the Meserete Kristos Church in Ethiopia have been in conversation with church leaders from China, discussing common concerns and looking for opportunities to assist each other economically.