The New York Times has published 10 articles within five months targeting a world-class dance company, Shen Yun Performing Arts. The company travels the world with a mission: to revive traditional Chinese culture and raise awareness for a faith group that’s brutally persecuted inside China. Recently, the paper decided to take aim at Shen Yun’s rapid growth and business sensation. Some China analysts warn the series could aid Beijing’s transnational suppression of those who fled its communist rule.
Jared Madsen, a master of ceremonies with Shen Yun since 2007, joins NTD to talk about the company’s worldwide success, and what China’s threats against faith and freedom on U.S. soil could mean for the Americans.
“The article seems to overlook the entire fact that Shen Yun started by practitioners of Falun Gong, many who had fled China under duress, under persecution. The performance company had two main goals. One was to tell the world about the persecution of Falun Gong. But really that wasn’t the main goal. The main goal was to revive traditional Chinese culture that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had been suppressing in China for decades. Those were the main goals.
“To suggest that we started a theatrical company just to make money is ridiculous, and that’s kind of the whole point of the article. But because of very good business practices, finding ways to have the business run well, to sell tickets, all of that, we were able to make money. We didn’t have a good show. People wouldn’t come to buy tickets. They wouldn’t see it. So in essence, the New York Times is praising us for doing a great job at selling tickets,” Madsen said.
The New York Times series of articles comes as a human rights group published a leaked document from Beijing last year, revealing that the communist regime laid out a plan to eradicate the faith group Falun Gong overseas, especially in the United States. The paper has been publishing single-sided articles against the dance company since last August painting the company and its members’ religious beliefs in a negative light, the frequency and angles of the New York Times reports are raising questions about where the paper stands in terms of Beijing’s transnational suppression campaign.
New York Times series of articles comes as a human rights group published a leaked document from Beijing last year that the communist regime laid out its plan to eradicate faith group Falun Gong overseas, especially in the United States “by any means necessary.”
The New York Times has been publishing single-sided articles against the dance company since last August painting the company and its members religious beliefs in a negative light. The frequency and angles of the New York Times reports are raising questions around where the paper stands in terms of Beijing’s transnational suppression campaign.
“Shen Yun and Falun Gong are almost like, the Communist Party is just testing, testing this in America, testing this in the United States, to see what will happen. And my prediction is that it will not stop at us. It’s going to start and it already is. That is what they have been doing to us for decades, and that is their next step, infiltrating into the United States,” Madsen said.
Last year, the Department of Justice charged at least nine individuals for acting as foreign agents on behalf of the CCP, including a former top aide to two current and former New York governors, Linda Sun. Another named Chen Jun is currently serving his 20-month-long sentence in prison after he tried to bribe the IRS to cancel Shen Yun’s nonprofit status.
Watch Madsen’s full interview here.