CCP’s Playbook Revealed

The operation has highlighted the level of infiltration and influence the CCP possesses in the United States, and if the plan gains traction, the CCP is likely to use the same toolkit against other targets, experts told The Epoch Times.

The operation kicked into high gear in 2022, when CCP leader Xi Jinping complained to top officials that practitioners of Falun Gong, a faith group persecuted by the CCP in China, have been increasingly effective at exposing the CCP’s crimes overseas, several internal sources told Chinese dissident and legal scholar Yuan Hongbin last year.

According to the sources, Xi chastised the officials, saying their previous efforts to suppress Falun Gong overseas were ineffective, and ordered a new campaign that would focus on the most prominent companies started by Falun Gong practitioners abroad. Those include Shen Yun Performing Arts, a premier classical Chinese dance and music company that puts on hundreds of performances a year under the tagline “China before communism,” as well as several media companies, including The Epoch Times and NTD.

Shen Yun, it appears, has borne the brunt of the new campaign, facing hit pieces in Western media and from social media influencers; attacks by social media bots and trolls; legal warfare; and even bomb threats and death threats.

The CCP sees Shen Yun as undermining its ideological grip on China and the image it presents to the world, which in turn threatens its grip on power and its ambition for dominance overseas, multiple experts previously told The Epoch Times.

“We urge the Chinese Communist Party to end its now 25-year campaign to eradicate Falun Gong.”

The spokesperson added that the department’s annual international religious freedom report had documented “incidents of interference against Falun Gong practitioners and Shen Yun Performing Arts in many countries.”

Notably, officials believe the Ministry of State Security was behind other high-profile operations in the United States, including the “Salt Typhoon” attack that hit most of the U.S. telecommunications system and targeted top political figures.

The New York Times alone has produced about a dozen such articles since August 2024, relying heavily on the claims of a small group of former Shen Yun performers, some with ties to CCP entities.

The articles center on two main claims. One is that the success of companies started by Falun Gong practitioners in the United States is somehow nefarious. The other is an allegation that Falun Gong prevents people from getting medical treatment—an old CCP propaganda canard deployed by the regime in the early years of the persecution to justify its campaign. The claim has been repeatedly debunked, mainly by Falun Gong practitioners themselves explaining that they do, in fact, see doctors when needed, as well as by physicians who have treated them.

U.S. social media have been manipulated to promote anti-Falun Gong content. On X, an Epoch Times investigation found thousands of fake accounts had been used to share The New York Times’ hit pieces and other anti-Falun Gong propaganda. The platform, when alerted, removed many of the accounts, but new ones have been continuously created.

Some of the fake accounts have been sophisticated, building a following for months, or even years, by posting various kinds of unrelated content, such as nature, food, animal, and travel photos, before abruptly mixing in anti-Falun Gong content.

According to whistleblowers, Chinese public security officials have been ordered to support YouTubers who portray Falun Gong and Shen Yun in a negative light.

One of the YouTubers specifically mentioned by the whistleblowers has claimed credit for supplying sources to the New York Times reporters.

Lawfare

In the past few years, an American man with longtime business ties to China repeatedly filed defective environmental lawsuits against Shen Yun’s campus in Orange County, New York. The most recent one was dismissed by a federal judge in September 2024—this time “with prejudice,” so it can’t be refiled.