The Chinese Communist Party’s Relentless Sabotage Campaign Against Shen Yun Is Out of Control

It was made clear earlier today at a press conference held by Shen Yun at the David H. Koch theater in Manhattan; that Shen Yun is under attack, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is to blame.

The CCP has launched an international sabotage campaign against the group, with at least 130 incidents of interference across 38 countries being documented since 2007. 

Shen Yun: A Growing Movement Threatens the CCP’s Narrative 

Shen Yun’s marketing team deserves countless awards, because if you’ve been outside lately, it’s more likely than not that you’ve seen one of their advertisements somewhere. And even if you’re a hermit,  you’ve undoubtedly seen one online.

And that’s because their performances are exploding in popularity. 

Performing classical Chinese dance that revives China’s culture before communism, Shen Yun has now performed in over 36 countries and over 200 cities globally, now reaching over one million people per year.

Shen Yun’s vision for a return to authentic Chinese culture and values refutes the CCP’s narrative that perverts thousands of years of Chinese culture, and presents an alternative that renders them obsolete. They’ve performed in some of the world’s most prestigious venues, such as the Lincoln Theater and Carnegie Hall, among countless others.  

Shen Yun has been growing every year since it was founded in 2006, while the CCP’s global reputation has been on the decline, plagued by increasing recognition of its countless human rights abuses, and its role in the COVID-19 pandemic that killed millions. 

Shen Yun’s open defiance of CCP tyranny, and them being Falun Gong practitioners, a religion the CCP targeted for destruction in 1999, has made them a prime target for the CCP. Falun Gong had up to 100 million members in 1999, making it a major threat to the CCP as it exceeded their own membership. The CCP has been documented to have detained practitioners for so-called “reeducation through labor” (i.e. brainwashing and slavery), has tortured 2,000 to death as of 2009, and has killed 65,000 to harvest their organs from 2000-2008 alone. Even the Nazis didn’t engage in organ harvesting. 

Just as they did to the Falun Gong in China, the CCP has also turned its attention to Shen Yun for their affiliation with the religious group, and their performances that could help reverse the CCP’s “cultural revolution” that erased 5,000 years of history. While their targeting of the Falun Gong was specific to China, when it comes to persecuting Shen Yun, they’ve gone global. 

There’s no low that the CCP won’t stoop to in targeting Shen Yun; they’ve faced countless bomb threats, frivolous lawsuits to waste their time and money, bogus allegations of abuse that have been laundered through supposedly reputable publications like the New York Times, and slashed the tires of busses carrying its performers. 

As they put it at their press conference, “we faced cancel culture 20 years before everyone else.”

All the Fake News That’s Fit to Print

Since August 2024, the New York Times began a smear campaign against Shen Yun that had obvious CCP ties. The pieces were authored by Nicole Hong and Michael Rothfield, and they allege mistreatment of performers at Shen Yun. Some of the performers quoted in the article as having suffered abuses have since spoken out against the New York Times’ fake news. Over 60% of Hong’s articles since August have been on Shen Yun, and her background leaves no doubt for the source of her obsession.

Her father is George Hong, who holds a number of significant positions within organizations closely linked to the CCP; he serves as a visiting professor at the CCP-affiliated Zhejiang University and Jiangxi Normal University in China. Zhejiang is a public university affiliated with China’s Ministry of Education, while Jiangxi is co-sponsored by the Ministry of Education and the communist Jiangxi Provincial Government. He was an honorary overseas director of the Western Returned Scholars Association (WRSA), which is part of the CCP’s United Front Work Department. The Untied Work Front department gathers intel on individuals and organizations inside and outside of China to attack opposition, and has been described as “the most powerful association” by Chinese media, with ties to high-ranking CCP officials. 

In 2023, dictator Xi Jinping called on the WRSA to rally talent from around the world to bolster its efforts. 

Even the co-author Rothfield isn’t clean; in 1979 Rothfeld was a member of the first cultural delegation from the United States to the People’s Republic of China.

None of these conflicts of interest were disclosed by the Times. 

Bomb Threats

Just last month the prestigious Kennedy Center had to be evacuated for a bomb threat ahead of a Shen Yun show. 

In what can only be described as acts of psychological terrorism, the bomb threats are a three pronged attack on Shen Yun; trying to get shows cancelled, trying to reduce attendance at future shows, and trying to put them on the hook financially for the increased security they’ll need to proceed. 

The list of bomb threats just since March 2024 is exhaustive;

• March 22, 2024: Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara, California
• March 23, 2024: Queen Elizabeth Theater in Vancouver, Canada
• March 26, 2024: Weiwuying Opera House, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
• March 26, 2024: Long Beach Convention Center, Long Beach, California 
• March 26, 2024: Shen Yun HQ, Deerpark, New York
• December 11, 2024: San Jose Center for Performing Arts, San Jose, California
• December 11, 2024: Atlanta Symphony Hall, Atlanta, Georgia
• December 12, 2024: Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentina, Florence, Italy
• December 25, 2024: San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, San Jose, California
• December 28, 2024: Palace Theater, Waterbury, Connecticut
• December 31, 2024: Tobin Center, San Antonio, Texas

The eleven attacks came in clusters in March and December, and ramped up drastically to the highest they’ve ever been this year. 

• January 10, 2025: Zellerback Hall, Berkeley, California
• January 13, 2025: Taiwan Tickering Center, Taiwan
• January 18, 2025: Grand Theater, Lodz, Poland
• February 3, 2025: Zenith de Dijon, Dijon, France
• February 3, 2025: New Victoria Theatre, Working, England
• February 8, 2025: Teatro Petruzzelli, Bari, Italy
• February 8, 2025: Venue Cymru, Llandudno, Wales
• February 8, 2025: Centro de Bellas Artes, San Juan, Puerto Rico
• February 8, 2025: Ikeda Theater at Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, Arizona
• February 17, 2025: Shen Yun Ticketing Processing Center, Northampton, England
• February 20, 2025: Miller High Life Theatre, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

By the morning of February 20, only fifty-one days into the new year, the number of bomb threats eclipsed that of all of 2024.

And they continued a mere 12 minutes later that same day. 

• February 20, 2025: The Kennedy Center, Washington DC
• February 20, 2025: La Cité des Congrès de Nantes, Nantes, France
• February 21, 2025: RAI Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• March 9, 2025: Von Braun Center, Huntsville, Alabama
• March 10, 2025: Keelung Performing Arts Center, Keelung, Taiwan
• March 10, 2025: The Onecenter Crouse Hinds Theater, Syracuse, New York
• March 13, 2025: Des Moines Civic Center, Des Moines, Iowa
• March 13, 2025: Stifel Theatre, St. Louis, Missouri
• March 13, 2025: BJCC Concert Hall, Birmingham, Alabama
• March 13, 2025: Teatro Auditorio San Lorenzo de El Escorial, San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain
• March 18, 2025: Taichung City Chung Shan Hall, Taichung City, Taiwan 
• March 20, 2025: At least four entities in Taiwan received bomb threats if they didn’t make public statements opposing Shen Yun 
• March 20, 2025: Tainan Cultural Center, Tainan City, Taiwan 

Tragically, this list will be out of date within just days of the publication of this article

Tire Slashing

The tire slashing against the buses that transport Shen Yun’s performers aren’t your ordinary tire slashings where a tire is deflated. The CCP isn’t looking to prevent their freedom of movement – they’re looking to inflict terror on Shen Yun’s performers. Tires are slashed in a thin manner so that the tire will blow while busses are traveling at high speeds with the aim of causing a crash. 

Public reports of these specific activities goes back to at least January 2010 and have continued every year since then.  

Lawfare

Just as Donald Trump’s enemies tried to destroy him by burying him in lawsuits, the CCP has deployed the same strategy against Shen Yun, among many others. 

While frivolous lawsuits have wasted time and money, they at least haven’t been otherwise successful. 

Last September U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth M. Karas dismissed a lawsuit against Dragon Springs, the a training campus for Shen Yun performers. The lawsuit was filed by the Mid-New York Environmental and Sustainability Promotion Committee. The suit was the group’s fourth attempt to challenge Dragon Springs, alleging unspecified environmental issues. The dismissal on September 11, 2024, was “with prejudice,” ending their charade once and for all.

The group’s founder Zhao Weidong is alleged to have ties to communist officials in the Henan Province in China. It’s unclear when Mid-New York Environmental and Sustainability Promotion Committee was even founded, with the earliest documentation suggesting it was potentially in 2021, making it more likely their environmentalist mission is contrived, and they’re really a CCP front group to target Shen Yun, using the environment as a Trojan horse. 

IRS Abuse

In one of the most famous takedowns in the history of American crime, it wasn’t Al Capone’s crimes of murder and bootlegging that took him down, but the IRS due to his tax evasion. No government agency has as much power to destroy as the tax man, and the CCP has tried to falsely weaponize it against Shen Yun, despite them doing nothing wrong. 

Just as is the case with lawfare, weaponizing the IRS against Shen Yun would force them to spend countless dollars fighting bogus allegations, and spending countless hours dealing with paperwork that would otherwise be spent advancing the organization. 

Last year the DOJ announced that two Chinese men had pleaded guilty to acting as agents of the CCP to sabotage Shen Yun in this way.

The two men, John Chen, 71, and Lin Feng, 44, both residents of Los Angeles, pleaded guilty to acting as unregistered agents of China and bribing an IRS agent. From January to May 2023, they worked under the CCP’s direction to target U.S.-based Falun Gong practitioners.

They filed a false IRS whistleblower complaint to strip Shen Yun of its tax-exempt status, paying $5,000 in bribes to an undercover agent posing as an IRS official, with promises of more payments. 

Chen pleaded guilty on July 24, 2024, and was sentenced to 20 months in prison in November 2024, while Feng pleaded guilty on July 25, 2024, with sentencing scheduled for May 2025. 

Embassy Threats

In an attempt to banish Shen Yun from entire countries in one blow, the CCP has threatened embassies to do their bidding – or else. 

In November 2023 the Greek City Times reported that the Chinese Embassy in South Korea openly acknowledged its efforts to block Shen Yun from performing in the country. 

The article highlights a rare admission from the embassy, which confirmed sending letters to South Korean theaters and officials to pressure them into canceling Shen Yun shows. This aligns with a documented history of interference, including a 2016 incident where the embassy allegedly threatened KBS Hall with economic retaliation, costing over $8 million in lost broadcasting rights in China, leading to canceled performances. 

CCP Signals They’re Willing to Use Lethal Force

A Chinese American YouTuber who calls Falun Gang his enemy claimed on social media to have been the catalyst for the Times’ aforementioned reporting, and having personally assisted them. After the publication of the first Times article on Shen Yun, he posted to Twitter/X “I was the one who introduced people to the New York Times, especially for the initial interviews [to discredit Shen Yun.” 

He was later arrested and charged after carrying an illegal gun near a Shen Yun event. Even if he was lying about his responsibility in the Times’ bogus reporting, it’s less likely he was bluffing when it came to his – and the CCP’s – willingness to use lethal violence against Shen Yun, as it has to millions within the borders of China. Through both violence and incompetence, no regime has killed more than the CCP, including Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. 

Meanwhile, they’re been ramping up their death threats, with 18 directed at Shen Yun performers just in the first 20 days of March.

Death threats are often dismissed as just empty threats – bluffs to inspire fear – but when men are showing up to events with guns, that can’t be argued in this case.

Final Thoughts

The lengths the CCP is willing to go to destroy Shen Yun is itself a testament to the threat Shen Yun poses to them. 

The CCP is waging an attack on an American organization, and it’s time for the U.S. government to finally fight back.

The DOJ needs to investigate the sources of the foreign influence behind the bomb threats, lawfare, and other acts of sabotage. As the U.S. government is currently looking to ban Chinese farmland purchases and seize China-owned farmland to satisfy a landmark $24 billion judgement for COVID-19 damages, it’s time they turn their attention to the other ways the CCP has garnered influence within the U.S. They’re also finally taking an interest in shutting down Chinese police stations in the U.S., with House Republicans leading the charge.

At the presser a petition of over 1,500 performance artists and their family calling on the U.S. to investigate the CCP’s influence was made public. 

“We are concerned about the beloved American company that brings hope and joy to millions. We are concerned about Beijing’s ability to manipulate and control our society,” they said.

Communism has been defeated before in Europe – now it’s time to defeat it in China.