Why is Beijing Trying to Silence American Artists?

An American company received over 140 death and bomb threats. FBI arrested two Chinese spies. The theaters had to be evacuated. The message said, we will kill you. This is an American enterprise. So who wants these young dancers dead? The company's name is Shen Yun. And these performers do a meditation practice called Falun Gong. This past year, the Chinese regime has dramatically escalated attacks on them, including death threats, lawfare, and even the weaponization of American government and media institutions. But why? What is it about Shen Yun's message that Beijing doesn't want you to hear? And what is really at stake here? Reuters reported Chinese influence operations targeting the U.S. are evolving, engaging in more advanced deceptive behaviors and directly targeting hypersensitive rifts in society. The FBI is opening a new China-related counterintelligence case about every 10 hours. The CCP controls our own narratives within the United States. It uses our own media against us. One good example is its attack on Falun Gong. China started hiring YouTubers. I got an email where they were like, we'll give you $200 to post this video to your YouTube channel. And then it was like a mini doc that was like five to 10 minutes long from some white dude complaining about this group. And I'm like, I ain't posting that to my channel. What is this? Last year, a Beijing-backed YouTuber who has publicly threatened violence against Shen Yun claimed credit for orchestrating and pitching libelous stories about Shen Yun to the New York Times. The resulting articles were riddled with inaccuracies and exhibited strong bias. They also failed to disclose how several key sources have ties to the Chinese regime. Nevertheless, these stories have spread through social media, including via fake accounts. In fact, the X platform has taken down thousands of these fake accounts. Beijing-backed social media influencers urged their followers to call U.S. federal and state agencies in an attempt to trigger investigations into Shen Yun. At the same time, two Chinese spies in New York were arrested by the FBI for trying to bribe the IRS to open an investigation into Shen Yun. They were convicted in 2024. Multiple individuals, including some with ties to China who live outside the U.S., have filed frivolous lawsuits against Shen Yun in U.S. courts, claiming environmental and labor violations. Several of these lawsuits were thrown out by New York judges, including one dismissal in which the judge called the lawsuit vague, illogical, and an oxymoron. Why is all this happening? And how is it even possible to exercise this much influence on American soil? According to internal documents and China insiders, in 2022, CCP leader Xi Jinping gave new directives to use lawfare and disinformation in the U.S. to silence Shen Yun and Falun Gong. And he called on the regime's security apparatus to lead these efforts. This whole thing is coming from the very top of the Chinese regime. Shen Yun speaks truth to power. It shatters Beijing's billion-dollar campaign to whitewash its reputation around the world. In a single breathtaking performance, Shen Yun unveils China's authentic culture, a culture before communism. But more importantly, it also exposes the regime's persecution of religions and human rights abuses, including forced organ harvesting, bringing this message to more than a million theatergoers every year. This is a message Beijing doesn't want you to hear. Shen Yun is a U.S.-based independent nonprofit that was founded by practitioners of Falun Gong, a Buddhist-based spiritual practice with ancient roots. Falun Gong combines meditation, gentle exercises, and moral teachings that guide one to be genuine, compassionate, and resilient. Largely due to its popularity in China, where 100 million people were doing Falun Gong, in 1999, the Chinese regime launched a campaign to eradicate the practice. Yet while facing rampant imprisonment, torture, and killing in China for the past 25 years, the Falun Gong community did not break. Instead, it gave rise to the largest civil disobedience movement in Chinese history. Inside China, tens of millions of Falun Gong practitioners produce and distribute leaflets, debunking state-run media. In the U.S., Falun Gong practitioners started the world's largest independent Chinese-language media and founded Shen Yun, which has become an artistic powerhouse celebrated around the world. All these efforts expose the true nature of the CCP on the world stage. And here is what Beijing is most afraid of. If the full scope and scale of atrocities the CCP has committed against Falun Gong, which many legal experts call genocide, are broadly known by people and governments around the world, it could precipitate the fall of the Chinese regime. Beijing sees this as an existential threat. This is not just about Shen Yun or Falun Gong. This is a playbook, a test run of a strategy that, if successful, proves that Beijing can manipulate U.S. media, government, and legal systems to take down any of its critics right here in America.