Conservative MP Fred Davies says Beijing is continuing to use a transnational pressure campaign against arts and culture venues in Canada and the federal government to cancel Shen Yun Performing Arts shows.
“Thousands of Canadians go to see Shen Yun at theatres in their community every year,” Davies said in an April 20 post on X, while sharing a video segment from a parliamentary hearing he took part in about China’s transnational repression. “The Chinese government and their officials working here in Canada, however, continue to mount a transnational pressure campaign against venues and the federal government to cancel these performances.”
The video shared by Davies includes him hearing testimony from Grace Wollensak, national coordinator of the Falun Dafa Association of Canada, about hoax bomb threats Shen Yun has faced recently, as well as Beijing’s transnational repression against Falun Gong practitioners in Canada.
Shen Yun Performing Arts, a classical Chinese dance and music company based in New York, was founded in 2006 by leading classical Chinese artists whose mission is to revive China’s traditional culture. The company travels around the world each year with the tagline “China Before Communism,” and has been frequently targeted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in a variety of ways.
Davies noted that the cancellation of several Shen Yun performances in Toronto after the theatre received a hoax bomb threat is the most recent example of the pressure Shen Yun and its organizers face.
Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts cancelled six Shen Yun shows scheduled to perform at the theatre from March 29 to April 5 after receiving fake bomb threats from a Chinese email account.
The theatre’s decision to cancel the shows came despite police confirming the threats were not credible and despite requests by the show’s local presenter, the Falun Dafa Association of Toronto, to allow the shows to proceed. The association said interference tactics shouldn’t lead to artistic suppression in Canada.
“When will the government stand up to China and denounce this interference against arts and culture here in Canada?” Davies said in the social media post.
During the parliamentary committee meeting on April 20, Davies asked the Falun Dafa Association of Canada representatives to explain how transnational repression and the threats against Shen Yun have evolved, noting Shen Yun is “one of the most popular presentations you can see in North America.”
“It’s hard to explain to Canadians what transnational repression is and what these threats are, but this is a very salient and specific example of something that is happening right in front of our eyes,” Davies said.
Wollensak said she believes the threats against Shen Yun are another manifestation of transnational repression and foreign interference, and another aspect of the “coordinated campaign” the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) engages in to suppress dissidents abroad.
She said the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa and Chinese consulates across Canada have actively pressured theatres in Canada and the Canadian government to cancel Shen Yun performances.
The CCP also engages in a public opinion and disinformation campaign in an effort to control what people think about the Chinese regime and those who speak out against its human rights abuses, she noted.
Expansion of Threats
In addition, she said the CCP has recently been targeting Shen Yun with fake bomb and death threats, with such threats expanding this year to target Canadian leaders, including Prime Minister Mark Carney and former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, if Shen Yun performed in Canada.
Nearly identical messages were also sent the same day to at least five other countries, targeting the leaders of Australia, Italy, Austria, Denmark, and South Korea.
Taiwanese police have previously traced some of the threat emails received by Shen Yun’s presenters to Xi’an, China, through a multiagency investigation. The emails appear to have originated from a location near the Huawei Xi’an Research Institute, which plays a key role in aiding Beijing’s global tech ambitions, Taiwanese authorities previously confirmed to The Epoch Times.
“We should not fall into that trap. That will really embolden the CCP … to go further, to do more of this,” Wollensak said. If the CCP thinks it has succeeded with its campaign in Canada, it could apply the same methods to suppressing Shen Yun in other countries, she noted.
Shen Yun’s shows in Vancouver that took place earlier this month were also targeted by hoax bomb threats from the same email account that threatened the Toronto shows. However, the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, the Vancouver theatre that hosts Shen Yun annually, allowed the shows to proceed after police confirmed the threats were fake, as had also been done in previous cases where venues received fake bomb threats.
The Vancouver Police Department’s Cybercrime Unit investigated the email address used to send the bomb threat to the Vancouver theatre and determined the threat was sent from a VPN address linked to Asian regions, the organizers said. Police also found a phone number associated with the email address and determined it was a Chinese phone number, with the user based in China.
Cognitive Warfare
Maria Cheung, professor emeritus with the University of Manitoba, told MPs at the committee meeting that the CCP uses lawfare to “make the world think that Shen Yun or Falun Gong have done something wrong.”
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, was the fastest-growing spiritual group in China in the early 1990s, teaching practitioners to improve their moral character by following the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. The CCP saw the growing popularity of the practice as a threat to its power and launched a persecution campaign in 1999, vowing to eliminate it.
Cheung said once the CCP began persecuting Falun Gong in 1999, it used a “cult narrative” to describe Falun Gong, which she noted is a form of cognitive warfare that has been “very unfair” to the Falun Gong community.
In addition, she told MPs that transnational repression by the CCP against Falun Gong is a “sustained global campaign,” is not limited to isolated incidents, and is a “direct encroachment on sovereignty, democratic values, and fundamental freedoms.”
She noted that cancelling Shen Yun shows and not standing up to foreign interference and transnational repression is “a very dangerous sign.”
