Officials from the Chinese Consulate in Vancouver met with a city hall official in April to pressure the city to not allow Shen Yun to perform at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, which is owned by the City of Vancouver.
The revelation about the latest attempt by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to interfere with the New York-based dance company that performs under the tagline “China Before Communism” was made in a May 4 report by Global News. The information about the meeting came from anonymous sources, but was confirmed by the city.
The news comes as local Shen Yun presenters say the company is facing an aggressive campaign of intimidation and interference by the CCP, which includes hoax bomb threats and other tactics to pressure venues to cancel the shows.
The Queen Elizabeth Theatre was also a target of hoax bomb threats prior to Shen Yun’s April 8–12 run, but the theatre allowed the shows to proceed after the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) confirmed the threats were not credible. The VPD’s Cybercrime Unit determined that the phone number associated with the email account from which the threats were sent is based in China.
However, threats from the same email account sent to Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts did result in the cancellation of six shows scheduled to play from March 29 to April 5 in Toronto, despite a police investigation confirming that the threats were unfounded. This week, the theatre agreed to host rescheduled shows following repeated requests from the show’s local presenter.
Shen Yun was formed in 2006 by leading Chinese artists with a mission to revive China’s traditional culture that was diminished under communist rule. The company’s artists are practitioners of Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, a spiritual meditation practice based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Practitioners have been persecuted by the CCP since 1999, when the regime deemed the practice’s popularity as a threat to its power.
The Chinese Consulate in Vancouver on May 22, 2024. The Epoch Times
Meeting
The Queen Elizabeth Theatre, which has hosted Shen Yun for years, is owned by the City of Vancouver and operated by the Vancouver Civic Theatres.
A City of Vancouver spokesperson told The Epoch Times that during the early April meeting between city staff and Chinese officials, “a range of cultural topics were discussed, including the Shen Yun production.”
“Staff may, from time to time, meet with representatives of consulates for information-sharing purposes. These conversations are high-level and do not involve policy decisions or commitments,” the spokesperson said, adding that the city doesn’t “censor or limit lawful freedom of expression within its venues.”
The spokesperson added that city officials collaborate with local police regularly to ensure safety at the venues owned by the city.
Although the spokesperson wouldn’t get into what Chinese officials were asking for specifically regarding Shen Yun, sources who spoke to Global News said the consulate wanted the shows to be cancelled.
Former Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart said it’s very serious that the Chinese Consulate is now directly targeting the civil service with its interference activities, adding that the mayor and the city council should take the issue very seriously.
“What’s worrying to me is the level of interference. Taking pot shots at politicians is one thing, but starting to infiltrate within the civil service and directly intimidating civil servants, I haven’t heard of that before,” Stewart, who is now an associate professor at the Simon Fraser University School of Public Policy, told Global News.
“So this is perhaps an emboldened move by the consulate, if they are actively going in and trying to change city operations, bypassing politicians, bypassing political avenues, and doing this internally.”
Former Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart in a file photo. Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press
Stewart, who has been outspoken about Beijing’s rights violations and supports Taiwan’s independence, was himself a target of the CCP in Vancouver’s 2022 mayoral election, in which he lost his bid for re-election. The revelation came amidst heightened media scrutiny into Chinese interference in Canadian democracy that, amid pressure by opposition parties, led to the federal government mandating a public inquiry into foreign interference in 2023.
A January 2022 leaked report by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, reported on by the Globe and Mail said that then-consul-general Tong Xiaoling discussed “grooming” candidates favourable to Beijing’s interests to win in the municipal elections.
The Epoch Times contacted the Prime Minister’s Office, Global Affairs Canada, and Public Safety Canada for comments regarding the new revelations in Vancouver, but didn’t immediately hear back.
Joel Chipkar, a spokesperson with the Falun Dafa Association of Canada, said the Chinese Consulate’s attempt to interfere with Shen Yun in Vancouver is “part of a blatant interference campaign in a host state by a foreign regime to silence critics here in Canada.”
“There was never a doubt in our minds that theatres here in Canada were being pressured by the Chinese Communist Party to cancel Shen Yun, ” Chipkar said. “We now have a smoking gun.”
Chipkar said the association applauds Vancouver Civic Theatres for not caving in to the CCP’s pressure tactics. He called on Canadian officials to publicly condemn the CCP’s transnational repression against Shen Yun and Falun Dafa in Canada, as well as declare the Chinese Consulate officials responsible for the interference efforts as persona non grata and have them expelled.
“Make no mistake, the CCP wants to destroy democracy. And any theatre, business, or politician who knowingly or unknowingly assists in canceling Shen Yun helps them do that,” Chipkar said.
Foreign Interference at All Levels
The foreign interference public inquiry said in its final report in 2025 that Beijing is the “most active perpetrator of foreign interference targeting Canada’s democratic institutions.” It added that foreign interference activities target all levels of government and civil society groups in Canada.
Michael Prue, Mayor of Amherstburg, Ont., speaks at a Falun Dafa flag-raising ceremony outside of the Amherstburg municipal building on April 30, 2026. Evan Ning/The Epoch Times
Most recently, mayor of Amherstburg, Ont., Michael Prue, said he personally experienced the most direct form of foreign interference in Canadian affairs during his decades in public office when his town observed the annual May 13 World Falun Dafa Day.
Prue, previously an Ontario MPP for 13 years, said the Toronto Chinese Consulate sent him a letter last year after the city had raised a Falun Dafa flag asking him to stop supporting Falun Dafa.
“I have never been told by a foreign authority or anyone in Canada to stop saying what I believe is true,” Prue said on April 30, as his town once again raised the Falun Dafa flag in a public ceremony.
“For 27 years, I have stated my hope that one day the Chinese government will come to its senses and recognize what a wonderful organization Falun Dafa is and will stop the persecution,” he said.
Interference With Shen Yun
As well as bomb threats, there have been many other attempts to interfere with and undermine Shen Yun that organizers say are linked to Beijing, including slashed tires on the buses carrying the artists and smear campaigns.
In 2024, two Chinese agents received prison sentences for attempting to bribe an Internal Revenue Service agent to open an investigation into Shen Yun.
Shen Yun organizers say the company has been targeted more than 150 times over the past two years by fake bomb threats in an attempt to have its shows cancelled.
As reported previously by The Epoch Times, leaked documents revealed that Chinese leader Xi Jinping issued a directive in 2022 ordering attacks on Falun Dafa overseas using disinformation and lawfare.
