(Minghui.org) Nina Shea, Senior Scholar and Director of Hudson Religious Freedom, published a commentary in Agenda, a magazine published by Florida International University, on July 2, 2025. She condemned the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) transnational repression of Falun Gong, which threatens Chinese Americans' freedom of belief and interferes with Shen Yun Performing Arts.
Nina Shea, Senior Scholar and Director of Hudson Religious Freedom
Ms. Shea outlined how the CCP uses spies and networks inside the United States to monitor, intimidate, and suppress Falun Gong practitioners, as well as Uyghur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, and democratic dissidents. The article lists legal cases, threats, sabotage, and disinformation campaigns driven by Chinese agents; it also underscores the urgent need for a broader institutional response from the U.S. government.
The article reads, “Ying Chen’s family members were prominent classical musicians with China’s National Philharmonic Orchestra in 1999, when Beijing suddenly decreed a ban on their Buddhism-based Falun Gong religion and persecuted them in harsh labor camps, where they were tortured with electric batons.
“Twenty years ago, they fled China and resettled in New York’s Orange County, drawn to the Falun Gong spiritual center there. They helped establish Shen Yun, the center’s performing arts troupe. Ying is now an American and successful Shen Yun conductor, but she and her religious community have yet to breathe free.”
Ms. Shea pointed out that the CCP targets Falun Gong within the United States and is working for the worldwide suppression of it, as well as Tibetan Buddhists, Uyghur Muslims, and Chinese pro-democracy dissidents. This suppression isn’t limited to cyber attacks. A shadowy network of China’s agents, directed and funded by Beijing, is active within U.S. borders to silence and undermine Ying’s freedom of religion and speech, her community, and the other groups.
She stated, “Religious freedom is the first freedom in the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights and is considered among the 'unalienable rights' endowed by our Creator, as phrased in the Declaration of Independence. Over the last 250 years, this right has been continuously strengthened and fiercely defended to meet various challenges. Today, a serious new challenge to Americans’ constitutional freedoms comes from the CCP.
“A recent congressional report shows that Chinese spies have been operating under America’s nose for two decades. In 2022, the FBI discovered a Chinese secret police station was spying, plotting against, and reporting back to Beijing on Falun Gong and other Chinese Americans from the heart of New York’s Chinatown.”
The FBI reported that China’s ministries of state security (MSS) and public security (MPS) ran such operations. The MPS has an elite “912 Special Project Working Group,” specifically targeting Falun Gong and the other groups abroad. The Chinese agents spy and carry out influence campaigns on them—along with Americans generally—and also directs character assassinations, physical assaults, intimidation, and other coercive measures to stifle their freedoms.
The US Department of Justice arrested and charged Jianwang Lu for opening up and operating the clandestine police station in New York. Jianwang targeted Falun Gong in 2015. An ongoing federal case alleges that he worked as an MPS agent to help the Chinese consulate disrupt a lawful Falun Gong protest.
The article continued, “The FBI affidavit states that Lu described working with the Chinese consulate to bus a 'rent-a-mob 'of hundreds from Chinese community associations in New York and Philadelphia and paying each $60 to block a Falun Gong demonstration in Washington. A photo shows Lu receiving an MPS plaque, which he explained was for ‘ensuring that members of the Falun Gong religion did not disturb [Chinese] President Xi’s visit.’”
The CCP finds Shen Yun performances intolerable for showcasing Chinese spirituality and artistic traditions before communism and dramatizing the CCP’s atrocities. Performing in prestigious theaters, Shen Yun ballets are highly visible. In contrast, China’s ballet companies still feature “The Red Detachment of Women,” a paean to the CCP.
Ying said that Shen Yun is often harassed. “While on tour, its buses’ tires and parts were slashed and sabotaged, sets vandalized, and venues pressured to cancel. The FBI has repeatedly alerted it to death threats [I reviewed a recent one]. Just before I saw Shen Yun in February at Washington’s Kennedy Center, it received a bomb threat, forcing an hours-long delay.
“Shen Yun was also targeted by John Chen, who, last November, was sentenced to 20 months as an unregistered Chinese agent who furthered China’s “campaign to repress and harass Falun Gong practitioners,” according to the Justice Department. Chen exploited a U.S. whistleblower program in an attempt to “strip the tax-exempt status” from Shen Yun by bribing a purported IRS agent. Next, he offered the undercover officer $50,000 to open an audit of Shen Yun. Chen stated that he was carrying out Beijing’s aim to “topple” Falun Gong.”
“Falun Gong, Uyghurs, and Hong Kong democracy activists report being surreptitiously followed and photographed by Chinese spies, even on Washington’s National Mall,” Ms. Shea wrote. “In 2023, Tibetan protesters were bloodied by thugs in San Francisco. Beijing’s agents are suspected to be behind all this.
“Washington has responded with a case-by-case prosecution of China’s agents, typically on winnable but minor charges, such as violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act and lying to the FBI. While essential, this alone won’t stop the threat.
“A federal inter-agency task force is needed. The National Security Council and departments of State, Treasury, and Homeland Security should all be helping Justice protect Chinese-Americans’ ‘unalienable’ rights against a repressive foreign power.”
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