RIGA, Latvia—When Latvia decided to stage a performance by a New York-based arts company this January, the small European nation found itself under unexpected diplomatic pressure from a far-off giant: China.
In November 2024, just two months before Dailes Theater—Latvia’s largest professional theater—was set to host Shen Yun Performing Arts for the first time, the theater received a nine-page letter from the Chinese Embassy in Latvia. The letter contained a “kind recommendation,” urging the theater to “reconsider” its plan for the show, according to the theater’s director, Juris Zagars.
“Of course, we did not respond,” Zagars said during an appearance at local media TV3 on Dec. 15. “Because we believe it is absolutely unacceptable for the embassy of a country to dictate to us which repertoire would be suitable for us and which would not.”
Zagars went on to reveal that he had reached out to Latvia’s foreign ministry for guidance and learned that such diplomatic pressure on Shen Yun is not unusual.
Zagars told TV3 that he also received an invitation from the local Chinese Embassy to discuss what it called cooperation opportunities. When he sought clarification on the nature of the cooperation, there was no response from the embassy, according to Zagars.
Shen Yun, which tours the world each year under the tagline “China before communism,” is a top target of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which considers the performing arts company’s display of traditional Chinese culture as a threat to its control. The CCP has used various tactics to sabotage the company’s performances, ranging from diplomatic pressure and slashing tour bus tires to sending bomb threats to theaters and imprisoning performers’ family members who live in China.
Nonetheless, as Latvian media reported, this incident marks the first time in recent years that a foreign embassy has tried to influence the artistic direction of a Latvian theater.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia later confirmed that it had contacted the Chinese Embassy, reminding it of the nation’s commitment to freedom of speech and artistic expression.
Prior to opening night, Shen Yun’s presenter in Latvia told The Epoch Times that it communicated with local police, who advised it to report any attempts to disrupt the performance.
Latvia’s Ministry of Culture has previously told Shen Yun’s local presenter that “freedom of speech and expression are highly valued fundamental values” in Latvia, according to a letter viewed by The Epoch Times.
The shows went ahead without any disruption. From Jan. 5 to 7, thousands of Latvians flocked to the historical Dailes Theater to watch classical Chinese dance performances accompanied by a live orchestra.
After the performance, some audience members expressed their dismay at Beijing’s attempts to censor Shen Yun.
“China should be proud that these artists are showcasing their culture in such a beautiful way,” Latvian businessman Juris Birznieks told The Epoch Times after attending the evening performance on Jan. 5. He called Beijing’s attempts to cancel the show “incredibly miserable.”
The Baltic states—Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania—were forcibly annexed into the Soviet Union in 1940 and remained occupied until they regained their independence in 1991.
Escalating Pressure
Concerns are growing over Beijing’s ongoing efforts to stifle free artistic expression. In the United States, a State Department report, released in June 2024, highlighted Beijing’s persistent efforts to censor Shen Yun, stating that many of its artists practice Falun Gong.
Falun Gong is an ancient meditative discipline that consists of moral teachings based on truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. It has been brutally targeted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999, after an estimated 70 million to 100 million people took up the practice, according to official estimates at the time, outpacing CCP membership.
Over the past 25 years, practitioners who refused to give up their faith faced lengthy imprisonment, mental and physical torture, and even forced organ harvesting. Some of Shen Yun’s performances depict scenes from the CCP’s ongoing persecutory campaign against Falun Gong.
A March 2024 report published by the Falun Dafa Information Center, a nonprofit monitoring the persecution of Falun Gong, has since 2007 documented more than 100 cases spanning 38 countries targeting Shen Yun.
Such transnational repression has escalated in recent years. In December 2024, The Epoch Times reported that at a high-level meeting in October 2022, Chinese leader Xi Jinping personally ordered a new strategy to eliminate Falun Gong overseas. The new campaign is multifaceted, including leveraging legal battles in the United States and orchestrating a disinformation campaign through social media influencers and some Western media outlets, which outwardly appear independent of the regime. Among the campaign’s prime targets is Shen Yun.
False Bomb Threats and Diplomatic Pressure
During Shen Yun’s 2024 global tour alone, the company was targeted by false bombing threats and diplomatic pressure in multiple European cities.
In May 2024, France’s Galaxie Theater received a threat of a mass shooting if Shen Yun performances were not canceled. The theater’s manager alerted the police, who responded swiftly. The performances went ahead without incident.
Last March, while Shen Yun was performing at Poland’s CKK Jordanki Concert Hall, the theater’s cultural and conference director, Grzegorz Grabowski, told The Epoch Times that Chinese consular officials had attempted to interfere with the show on two separate occasions.
In January 2024, two consular representatives pressured the venue to cancel the show. After being rejected, the Chinese consul personally requested the following month that the contract be canceled, only to be turned down again.
Grabowski said at the time that the theater had already signed a contract with Shen Yun, and more importantly, all tickets had been sold out.
“I cannot cancel or terminate the contract,” he said.
“No amount of pressure can absolve us of our responsibility” to let Shen Yun perform as scheduled, he said. “That’s just the way it is.”
Petr Svab and Dorothy Li contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times