Who's afraid of Shen Yun?

While traveling with the company from Auckland, New Zealand to Sydney, Australia, Shen Yun dancer (name available upon request) who is a PRC citizen with a U.S. green card and U.S.-issued travel document, was denied a boarding pass at the airport. The airline (Qantas) then checked with an immigration officer in Canberra, Australia, and the explanation given was that her travel document appeared in the system as “reported lost or stolen.” This in spite of the fact that she had been able to enter New Zealand three days prior on the same travel document.

Neither the dancer nor anyone in the company had reported her document as stolen or lost—it was with her the entire trip. After multiple conversations and inquiries by US consulates and immigration authorities in New Zealand, Australia, the United States, and Thailand, no plausible explanation could be given other than someone had entered the system and changed her travel document’s status over the previous several days.

Why was she, specifically, targeted?

One explanation is that her father had just come out of China five weeks prior after spending 12 years jailed as a prisoner of conscience. The incident of her travel document denial took place days after her father visited Washington, DC to tell people about his story, and the very next day after his story was published on a Chinese dissident blog.

Could someone on the inside have done this as an agent of the PRC?

According to an investigation, the Chinese Ambassador to Spain has admitted pressuring the Royal Theater in Madrid to cancel the show. In a recorded, investigative phone call, the Ambassador spoke of personally visiting Royal Theater to convey the message. The shows were subsequently canceled.

Just weeks before Shen Yun was set to perform for the first time in Madrid, the shows were suddenly canceled. The theater claimed the cancelation was due to “technical difficulties,” but organizers said that’s the excuse usually given whenever the Chinese embassy is the real reason.

With three performances scheduled Jan. 31-Feb. 2, the Royal Theater director sent a letter on Jan. 7 canceling the shows. The explanation given was that there was an “unavoidable artistic needs of the stage space” for a production of Das Rheingold. However, that production was already scheduled when the contracts with Shen Yun were signed and it was not perceived to be a problem then.

In a press release, Shen Yun’s local presenter, Puro Arte Humano, said it was confident “the Chinese Embassy has pressured the Madrid Coliseum to achieve the cancellation of the show, something that they already tried in Barcelona without success in 2014.”

This turned out to be the case. On Jan. 22, the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) placed a call to the Chinese Embassy in Spain. The investigator used a tactic WOIPFG had successfully developed while investigating organ harvesting in China, and posed as a high-ranking CCP official calling for information. He got through to the Ambassador.

On the other end of the line, the person identified himself as PRC Ambassador Lü Fan, according to a press release issued by WOIPFG, which includes a recording of the call. The Ambassador then went on to describe how he had succeeded in talking the theater manager into canceling the Shen Yun shows.

The theater manager initially resisted but Ambassador Lü insisted, according to the recording.

“I told him not to think only about the economic income but also politics,” the Ambassador reportedly said. “When you work with China by signing the ‘International League of Theaters of the Silk Road,’ you have a great potential in the Chinese market.”

Some 900 tickets had already been sold at the time the shows were canceled.

Just weeks before Shen Yun is set to perform for the first time in Madrid, the shows were suddenly canceled. The theater claims the cancellation is due to “technical difficulties,” but organizers say that’s the excuse usually given whenever the Chinese embassy is the real reason.

With three performances scheduled January 31 – February 2, the Royal Theater director sent a letter canceling the shows on January 7. The explanation given was that there was an “unavoidable artistic needs of the stage space” for a production of Das Rheingold. However, that production was already scheduled when the contracts with Shen Yun were signed and it was not perceived to be a problem then.

In a press release, Shen Yun’s local presenter, Â Puro Arte Humano, said it was confident “the Chinese Embassy has pressured the Madrid Coliseum to achieve the cancellation of the show, something that they already tried in Barcelona without success in 2014.”

Update: PRC Ambassador caught on tape boasting about how he got the shows canceled.

Why is someone affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army buying Westminster Choir College in Princeton?

New York Times – For Sale: Small Music College, Beloved by Some, Future Uncertain

The PRC’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations sent a letter addressed to “all Permanent and Observer Missions to the Union Nations.” This two-page letter (copy available upon request), bearing China’s UN Mission official stamp claimed that Shen Yun and Falun Gong “harms society and violates human rights.” This letter, sent about five weeks ahead of Shen Yun’s performances at Lincoln Center, told other countries’ UN missions to “remind their diplomats and staff not to support or attend the [Shen Yun] show.”

Great editorial by Leo Timm of The Epoch Times about the state-run National Ballet of China performance “The Red Detachment of Women.” This Cultural Revolution-era production appearing at Lincoln Center this summer glorified the violent class struggle of the Chinese Communist Party’s early days, which left millions killed, including the author’s grandfather, who was executed.

Read article about “The Red Detachment of Women” at Lincoln Center

LinkedIn just alerted me that my account has been blocked in China. They were very transparent about it and I’ve asked them for more information.

I was trying to think of what had triggered it. I had recently updated my profile and in that update I included an article I had written in Chinese for Beijing Spring – an overseas Chinese publication. Ironically, the subject of the article was Chinese censorship and interference with overseas freedom of expression, specifically in the world of performing arts by trying (unsuccessfully) to stop performances by Shen Yun.

Here’s the Beijing Spring article

And here’s the LinkedIn message:

On Feb. 19, 2015, two weeks before Shen Yun’s performances in Chicago, a promotional truck sporting Shen Yun advertising was sabotaged. Corrosive chemicals were poured under the car mat, over the brake and accelerator pedals, and the throttle cable underneath the truck had a 1-inch-long knife slash and was heavily corroded. These tactics are insidious, as they do not cause issues immediately, but over time – as the brake and accelerator corrode, the car may become uncontrollable in the middle of driving.

Report in Chinese: 芝加哥神韵广告车被恶性破坏 疑为中领馆所为

On Jan. 30, officials from the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Chicago met with a manager at the Peabody Opera House in St. Louis, Missouri. They demanded that the theater cancel Shen Yun’s booking from Feb 20-22, threatening that otherwise it would harm U.S.-China relations. The theater refused.

How China is Trying to Disrupt a Chinese Dance Company in the Midwest

中共阻擾神韻美中演出 遭劇院拒絕