Shen Yun Performing Arts Endures CCP Attacks (News Review Week 10)

According to various sources, Shen Yun Performing Arts, a classical Chinese dance company based in New York, is under chaotic attack by the Communist Party of China.

In June 2024 leaked documents, the CCP has launched a campaign to target Shen Yun Performing Arts, whether dance or orchestra, with the aim of forcing its closure.

The document is from the CITIC Foundation (China International Trust Investment Corporation)’s thinktank for reform and development studies.

According to FalunInfo.net, this is a new strategic shift to completely eliminate Falun Gong, a religious Buddhist practice founded by Master Li Hongzhi in 1991. Since 1999, after the persecution began, the practice has gone global, thanks to its self-help website, FalunDafa.org, published in multiple languages:

“Mobilize concealed agents to create and escalate the internal conflicts of Falun Gong, to expand nonstop the fighting strength, depth, and reach of [social media influencers targeting Falun Gong and Shen Yun]…they must attract the continuous attention of the entire United States society, and force the government to strike on all fronts, eliminating the force of Falun Gong.” —- Detailed notes from China’s Ministry of Public Security meetings held in June 2024

While the CPC projects diplomatic charisma and authority from Beijing, its Ministry of Public Security (MPS) plays a far more sinister and even vicious role, enforcing law and policy.

The problem is that the MPS has set up multiple Chinese police offices around the world including inside the United States in major cities. Their staff enable front office functions while coordinating more questionable activities. For instance, America Free Radio recently described how their liasion officers help ensure access for American politicians, such as Minnesota governor Tim Walz, to receive generous investment grants and China tours.

Background of Shen Yun: Ancient Buddhist Values

With regard to Falun Gong, however, the Chinese authorities have enacted a relentless campaign of persecution since 1999, effectively incarcerating many practitioners against their will, enacting torture, and even harvesting their organs. Even today, no open practice of Falun Gong spiritual Chinese yoga is allowed in any public setting in China, because the large-scale persecution continues. By clamping down on religion and free will, it creates a more docile amoral public readily submissive to the CPC leaders and their nepotisms.

Falun Gong is a beneficial Chinese yoga, health for mind-and-body, that draws from ancient Chi-Gong practices; however what sets it apart is the emphasis on character. The values of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance are essential to elevating one’s Gong over time, however this is seen as counter-cultural today. This is why in the West, even Christianity is being persecuted. But in 1999, General Secretary Jiang Zemin recognized the phenomenal success of Falun Gong, its popularity, its therapeutic benefits, and wide base as a threat to his own leadership popularity, and therefore, he targeted Master Li Hongzhi, who fled to the United States.

Master Li Hongzhi, who grew up in Northeastern China, had military training but also a musical background, so in 2006, he founded the Shen Yun Performing Arts company. He had also founded news media companies, such as The Epoch Times newspaper and New Tang Dynasty Television. All these enterprises were funded largely by the enthusiastic donor base and investments of Falun Dafa practitioners from around the world.

Even if there were not invidious forces against Li’s entrepreneurial success, the interference from Beijing and local operatives is making it hard for the Shen Yun tours. In the past, Beijing exerted pressure, even successfully, to force venues at tour stops to shut down the event. They developed a coterie of podcasters and news writers claiming Falun Gong is a cult. However recently the attacks have gone physical.

CCP Does Not Believe in Freedom of Religion, Speech, or Expression

According to Leeshai Lemish, a Master of Ceremonies on the U.S. Tour, speaking before NTDTV recently, Shen Yun faces intensified attacks due to the belief by the CCP that if they can control American freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, they can use the same strategies against the American government:

“If they can take down, in their mind, if they can take down Shen Yun, or at least cause it significant damage, they could go after any individual in American society, any politician, any organization, any faith-based group, any entertainment industry entity—anybody that they want they could go after. And this is very very dangerous of course for American freedoms to have an adversary like the CCP be able to manipulate American society, be able to manipulate our own public opinion..”

Recently conservative commentators have pointed out the irony that the inclusivity of leftists does not include respect for traditional America even when Trump promises MAGA is for all Americans. The attacks on Shen Yun also mirror Democratic leaders’ calls for violence against conservative politicians and pundits, and wreaking havoc on their personal lives and property security. This has included repeated calls to 911 about serious threats, resulting in “SWAT” teams arriving at various conservative commentator’s homes.

Lemish reports an increase in bomb threats received at venues since the beginning of this year. At Kennedy Center, for instance, when AGN arrived for the Shen Yun performance on February 27th, everyone had to go through a security check point. Lemish actually has a website that includes photos of slashed tour bus and truck tires, using cuts that are “crescent shaped” designed to make tires explode under high speed. The vandalism is reported for potential endangerment not only for the tour group and the bus, but other vehicles on the highway. Additionally, bomb threats cause a complete emptying of the facilities while the authorities take hours to search, posing disruption for the show.

Asked why the CCP views Shen Yun as such a threat, Lemish essentially stated:

“They’re absolutely threatened. They’re afraid of people seeing what China would be like without them. They’re afraid of these ancient legends and values like courage and integrity and compassion and faith, which are so antithetical to the Chinese Communist Party’s doctrine. And they’re afraid of how Shen Yun, as part of the performance, we show what’s happening in China. We show the tyranny, and we show the courage and the resistance to it, and they’re afraid of all this being discovered on stages like Lincoln Center and Kennedy Center in front of VIPs in America, and around the world from every walk of life. They’re terrified, that’s why they’ve always tried to stop Shen Yun.”

Show Will Go On, Combatting CCP Propaganda

The courage of the dancers, performers, musicians, and their families amid the attempt to sow discord and unfavorable public sentiment is visible under a simple search. Change.org has a petition that began in August 2024 claiming that Shen Yun Dance company exploits their students as under-aged workers. This charge has been countered by the students and families themselves: the selection process to qualify for Fei Tian Academy, a key entranceway into Shen Yun, is highly competitive. Like all dancers, artists, and musicians (or even athletes) it involves long hours, strict discipline, making sacrifices, and hard work. Students are honored to be able to hold a place, take risks, and learn on-the-job.

Amid the general xenophobia inside the USA regarding China, it is easy to target the Chinese-American company, because unlike the Hollywood industry, it is non-commercialized, not vulgarized with contemporary sex-and-violence innuendos, but instead is the world’s premier classical dance and music company with a mission to share 5,000 years of Chinese civilization through story-telling, poems, music, and art.

According to the Shen Yun Performing Arts website ShenYun.org in a press release, “Behind the Recent Media Misrepresentations of Shen Yun“:

“While it may not be a lifestyle for everyone, working at Shen Yun is something that people find deeply fulfilling because it challenges them to achieve artistic excellence while supporting them with a workplace environment built on compassion, teamwork, and striving to put others before oneself. Our artists receive top-notch medical care from doctors across the country, while students who perform with us as part of their coursework are cared for like our very own. We are, in some ways, a big family that nutures personal and professional growth as well as life-long friends, as evidenced by the hundreds of testimonies of our current artists, former artists, and family members…”

Shen Yun even crafted a special refutation against the The New York Times, which has penned up to ten articles about Shen Yun containing slurs and false allegations. But obviously the NYT is the tip-top of the mainstream media the CCP aims for in maximal reach. Lower down, there are Youtubers incentivized to willingly provide disinformation against Shen Yun, such as The China Report (BreakThrough News), hosted by journalists K.J. Noh and Amanda Yee, in “Shen Yun Human Trafficking: Inside the Anti-China Falun Gong Cult.” Never mind that it seems doubtful that Noh had ever been to a Shen Yun performance or learned about Falun Gong from the Falun Dafa website; the episode was filled with all kinds of smears.

In the face of the pivot to China, obviously China is now turning on the heat, investing in media, left-wing activism, right-wing xenophobes, lawfare, lawsuits, petitions, buying politicians, as well as the usual “fox-hunt” against Falun Gong activists inside the U.S.A. It doesn’t matter that what they do is illegal; what matters is the effect, which is how they are even recruiting independent journalists, such as Alex Mercouris, for “sounding boards” for “understanding China” in the US-China relationship (eg. podcaster SmallTownVoice1).

One good sign is that at least with the Trump administration, The Epoch Times has more support from the G.O.P. Actually Falun Gong activists for freedom of religion have garnered support from both sides of the aisle in the past. In fact, on June 25, 2024, the U.S. House of Representives unanimously passed the “Falun Gong Protection Act,” H.R. 4132, which condemns persecution against Falun Gong by the Chinese Communist Party, including forced organ harvesting. While it remained stalled in the Senate, recently, on March 3, 2025, Senator Ted Cruz introduced an updated “Falun Gong Protection Act” to condemn forced organ harvesting by the Chinese Communist Party. During the 118th Congress, Senator Marco Rubio had introduced the “Stop CCP Act and UN Special Rapporteur Funding Prohibition” which would impose sanctions against CCP members who are involved in acts of aggression, oppression, and human rights abuses. It is thanks to various Falun Dafa advocates’ efforts all around the globe that international attention has been raised against the atrocities.

“China’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners is an attack on religious freedom and human rights. It’s long past time to dismantle the CCP’s state-sponsored organ harvesting industry…I urge my colleagues to join me in countering these human rights violations and ensuring the CCP is held accountable…” —-Senator Ted Cruz, quote

“The United States, as the beacon of freedom around the world, cannot be silent when the Chinese Communist Party is engaged in systemic torturing, incarceration, and forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners…The CCP and its enablers must be held accountable for these atrocities.” —-Representative Scott Perry, quote

“We must do everything in our power to hold the CCP malign actors and organ traffickers accountable for their unspeakable crimes.” —-Representative Pat Ryan, co-leader of House version of the legislation

“Communist China has been able to get away with a campaign of widespread evil. From committing acts of genocide against religious and ethnic groups, to spearheading forced sterilisation and abortions, as well as dominating crucial minerals and technologies, and impeding the sovereignty of several regional partners, the U.S. will not tolerate these practices.” —-Senator Marco Rubio, press release quote

Whether it is sabotage, harassment, kidnapping, murder, bribery, live-organ harvesting, organ traffickers, and enablers, the CCP corruption and meddling inside the U.S.A. must be stopped. However charismatic the Leftist arguments, these illegalities expose a barbaric, dangerous, for-profit medical industry in China, along with superstitious belief that Falun Gong practioner organs are “clean and pure” because of their spirituality.

If that is what they believe, then why don’t they promote the good that is Falun Gong, which is not a cult?

Because the China Ministry of Public Security (MPS) is like any deep state international apparatchik: the bigger it grows, the better the promotions, the greater the responsibilities, and the easier to hide heinous crimes against humanity.

Promotional Poster from ShenYun.org