This month, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials accused the U.S. of “blackmail” over the Trump administration’s revived tariff strategy. But if there’s any regime on Earth that understands the mechanics of blackmail, it’s the CCP. They’ve mastered the art -- not just through trade policy or espionage, but through targeted, violent intimidation against American cultural institutions like the one I am part of: Shen Yun Performing Arts.

The New York Times has been a willing bedfellow in this effort.

Shen Yun is an American company. We are based in New York, we tour across the U.S., and we are proud to present the beauty of traditional Chinese culture -- before communism -- through classical dance and music. What we are not is a state-sponsored propaganda machine -- unlike the many cultural troupes the CCP sends abroad to rewrite China’s history and whitewash its crimes. And for that, the CCP has made us enemy number one in the cultural sphere.

But in recent weeks, this battle has reached new and alarming levels. In Taiwan, where unlike mainland China, Shen Yun performs and is celebrated with dozens of sold-out shows every year, authorities report they have received no less than 17 mass violence threats targeting Shen Yun and its audience members.

Liberty Times, one of Taiwan’s largest newspapers, reported that these emails -- threatening  bombings and mass shootings if Shen Yun performances are not canceled -- were traced back to none other than Huawei’s research institute in Xi’an, China.

Among the threat targets were not only theaters but also multiple Taiwanese government offices.

“If you do not want to be blown into rubble,” read one email, “immediately cancel all future Shen Yun performance plans and make a statement before tomorrow morning, otherwise I will remotely detonate the explosives!”

This form of CCP transnational terrorism is not limited to Taiwan. At least 44 theaters where Shen Yun is performing have received these bomb and shooting threats. Most of the targets -- from San Jose to Worcester, from San Antonio to Cheyenne -- have targeted Americans.

Not only our performers, but also theater staff and thousands upon thousands of audience members who simply bought a ticket to enjoy a night of culture and art.

This is not diplomacy. This is not foreign policy. This is terrorist blackmail.

For years, similar tactics have been used against theaters and elected officials in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Europe. Venues that contract with Shen Yun undergo pressure campaigns -- emails, phone calls, letters, and personal visits from Chinese embassies and consulates warning them not to “support a politically sensitive performance.” The tires of our Shen Yun buses have been repeatedly and dangerously slashed. Our artists’ family members are threatened and even jailed in China. Just a few days ago, our company website was simultaneously cyberattacked by 10,000 simultaneous IPs.

The irony is stunning. As the CCP accuses the Trump administration of wielding tariffs like a blunt force instrument -- an economic threat to strong-arm China -- their apparatchiks simultaneously wage an actual global terror campaign against a New York-based dance company.

This is projection in its most sinister form.

And it raises deeper questions: Why is the CCP so afraid of a dance company? Why does a beautiful performance of traditional Chinese dynastic culture elicit such rage from Beijing?

The answer lies in what we represent -- China Before Communism.

Shen Yun exists to revive China’s real cultural heritage -- one that the CCP has spent nearly a century trying to destroy. Our art draws from a time when Chinese society was deeply spiritual, before Marxism, before Mao, and before the Cultural Revolution that incinerated temples, imprisoned monks, and replaced moral tradition with state worship.

Shen Yun is a living reminder that China’s greatness predates the CCP -- and that true Chinese identity is incompatible with communist ideology.

It is also no coincidence that many of Shen Yun’s performers practice Falun Gong, a meditation discipline rooted in truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance -- values the CCP deems subversive. Hundreds of thousands -- perhaps millions -- of Falun Gong practitioners have been imprisoned, tortured, or killed in China. And yet here these people are, including ones who escaped persecution, thriving in the United States, drawing sold-out crowds from coast to coast. That’s not just a cultural embarrassment for the regime; it’s an existential threat.

Even U.S.-based media outlets like the New York Times have inexplicably joined the chorus, publishing condescending hit pieces that echo CCP talking points. They would rather criticize Shen Yun’s spiritual foundation than investigate who is actually sending death threats to American theaters. In February, when a bomb threat at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. forced our performers outside for three hours, the New York Times ignored it, even though the White House condemned it.

Huawei, of course, may claim ignorance. But let’s not be naïve. This is the same Huawei that stands accused of aiding China’s surveillance state, including the internment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. This is the same company banned from U.S. telecommunications infrastructure for national security reasons. And now, a police investigation points to Huawei as being at the center of a cyber trail leading to bomb threats against an American company.

So, when Beijing cries blackmail, remember who’s really holding the detonator.

As Americans, we must draw a clear line. It is not acceptable for a foreign power -- least of all a totalitarian regime -- to intimidate our artists, censor our stages, or terrorize our citizens. Cultural freedom is part of what makes this country great. And when we allow intimidation to dictate what can be said, shown, or performed, we lose something essential about who we are.

The time has come to expose the CCP’s campaign for what it truly is: a war on truth, beauty, and freedom -- values Shen Yun was founded to uphold, and ones we will never compromise.

Not now. Not ever.

Leeshai Lemish has performed with Shen Yun for 19 years. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Chinese history and language from Pomona College, CA, and his master’s in international relations from the London School of Economics. He tracks the CCP’s international attempts to sabotage Shen Yun on his website: www.leeshailemish.com. 

Image: Shen Yun