Shen Yun Targeted With Fake Bomb and Impersonator Threats

Senders of violent threats pretended to be journalists, dissidents, and even government officials.

Shen Yun Performing Arts' curtain call at the Hammersmith Apollo, London, on Jan. 13, 2026. Roger Luo/The Epoch Times

Shen Yun Performing Arts, a New York-based classical Chinese dance company, has been targeted with a growing number of threats and sabotage attempts in recent months. These include death threats, bomb threats, and impersonator attacks.

The threats, which in all cases turned out to be fake, have been made to theaters around the world hosting Shen Yun. The perpetrators made the threats while impersonating Taiwanese government officials, journalists, Chinese dissidents, or, in one case, a former Shen Yun performer.

Similar threats have been tracked by Taiwanese authorities to China. Shen Yun, based in New York, produces highly acclaimed performances under the tagline “China before communism” and has long been targeted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime in Beijing.

Chinese embassies and consulates have been issuing statements disparaging Shen Yun and in the past have tried to pressure theaters and government officials to block the company’s shows, threatening damage to relations with China. The most recent such statements were issued this month by the Chinese Embassy in London and the Chinese Consulates in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. The statements were then amplified by CCP-controlled media.

Shen Yun was founded in 2006 by practitioners of Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, a spiritual discipline and meditation practice based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. The faith group has been brutally persecuted by the CCP since 1999, with millions of practitioners arrested, tortured, subjected to forced labor, and even killed for their organs to fuel the regime’s transplantation industry. Shen Yun’s performances usually include one or two dance pieces that depict the persecution.

An all-female dance by Shen Yun Performing Arts that highlights the beauty of China's traditional culture. Shen Yun Performing Arts. (Shen Yun Performing Arts

Shen Yun has been targeted over the past two years with more than 160 death threats and bomb threats, usually emailed to theaters where the company performs. Another more than 70 such threats targeted Falun Gong more broadly, according to a tally by the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC), a nonprofit monitoring the persecution.

“Taken together, these incidents reflect a sustained and multifaceted effort to disrupt Shen Yun’s global touring season, intimidate venues and staff, and stigmatize Falun Gong through impersonation, intimidation, and defamatory narratives,” the organization said in a Jan. 18 statement.

The impersonation attacks have been particularly insidious, according to FDIC.

“It shows just how underhanded Beijing has become to try to sabotage Shen Yun,” FDIC Executive Director Levi Browde told The Epoch Times.

A Jan. 8 email sent to Shen Yun’s Taiwan ticketing service impersonated Taiwan’s minister of the interior, claiming that if the performances went forward, violence would follow, including the assasination of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te and a bombing of the Presidential Office.

In December and January, an individual or a group impersonating an Epoch Times editor emailed threats to ticketing services used by Shen Yun in France, the UK, Canada, Taiwan, and the United States, threatening bombings, assassinations of Canadian politicians, or an unspecified “terrorist attack.”

Levi Browde, executive director of the Falun Dafa Information Center, in Chicago on March 15, 2024. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

More threats involving bombings, kidnappings, rape, and shootings were sent within the same time frame to Shen Yun and ticketing contacts in Taiwan, Poland, the UK, and Canada by somebody impersonating a Chinese dissident living in Canada.

“Cancel the Shen Yun performance, or British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will be shot from a distance!” one of them said.

Though none of the threats have materialized, they have mounted constant pressure on Shen Yun, repeatedly forcing evacuations at theaters just hours before the performances were to begin.

“Let’s call these bomb and mass shooting threats what they really are: threats to conduct acts of terrorism. No American theater, company or community should be subjected to such terrorist threats,” Browde told The Epoch Times.

In some cases, senders purported to be Falun Gong “members” themselves, apparently an attempt to portray the group as terrorists.

Other emails attempted to thwart Shen Yun performances by making various allegations against the company. One purported to be from a former Shen Yun performer, but included no information backing up the claim. Another claimed to be a staffer at a European gender equality nonprofit, but instead borrowed the name of a former German professional athlete. Yet another purported to be a “media reporter,” without providing any specific media affiliation.

Coordinated Campaign

CCP ramped up its campaign against Shen Yun in 2022, when leader Xi Jinping reprimanded his top cadres for failing to suppress the faith group overseas, according to high-level insiders who spoke to Chinese dissident scholar Yuan Hongbin.

Xi ordered a new initiative that would use American institutions, including media, social media, and the legal system, to go after companies started by Falun Gong practitioners, according to Yuan’s sources as well as several whistleblower accounts previously reported by The Epoch Times.

John Chen (L) meets with Chinese communist leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, China, in an undated photo. Chen was sentenced to 20 months in prison on Nov. 19, 2024 for acting as an illegal Chinese agent and bribing IRS against Falun Gong. Department of Justice filing

Shen Yun seems to have borne the worst of it, facing dozens of hit pieces in Western media and from social media influencers; attempts by paid protesters to dissuade audience members; attacks by social media bots and trolls; and legal warfare, in addition to the constant stream of threats.

The FBI has arrested a handful of CCP operatives targeting Falun Gong, including two men who pleaded guilty in 2024 to acting as agents of Beijing in trying to bribe an IRS agent to open a bogus investigation into Shen Yun.

“The CCP’s campaign targeting the Falun Gong diaspora, and Shen Yun in particular, on U.S. soil constitutes a national security threat,” Browde said.

“As a nation, we must find a way to prevent hostile foreign powers like the CCP from maligning our communities and sabotaging our companies.”