The CCP in recent years has stepped up its sabotage campaign against the performing arts company, representatives said at a Lincoln Center press conference.
NEW YORK CITY—More than 1,500 artists and their family members have signed a petition calling on the United States to investigate Beijing’s weaponization of American institutions against their company and their community.
The petition was launched in December 2024 in the wake of rising hate narratives against New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts. Many who signed said they abhorred what they considered an attack on their values, work, and way of life.
The “gross distortions and false narratives” were “echoing through mainstream media,” bolstered in part by lawfare and “malicious calls for government inquiries,” they wrote in the petition, which was presented during a press conference at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, several hours before Shen Yun’s opening performance at the venue.
“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.
The petition calls for a Justice Department investigation into the “foreign malign influence campaign” and to bring the actors behind it to justice. It also asks Congress and the president to protect U.S. companies from Chinese influence operations. Lastly, it calls on media outlets “to act responsibly,” disclose any ties that their sources have to Beijing, and pursue “true objectivity.”
Shen Yun was started by practitioners of Falun Gong, a faith group brutally persecuted by the Chinese regime since 1999, after the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) grew fearful of its popularity.
In its annual tour around the globe, Shen Yun performs hundreds of Chinese classical dance and music shows, drawing out traditional values through story-based dances and highlighting human rights abuses in present-day China—all while weathering disruptive efforts from Chinese diplomats and sabotage from CCP-backed agents.
A 2024 report by the Falun Dafa Information Center documented more than 130 sabotage attempts targeting Shen Yun since its founding in 2006.
