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China’s Threat to Chinese-Americans’ Religious Freedom

Girls dressed in traditional clothing on the occasion of World Falun Dafa Day. Prague, Czech Republic. May, 2022 (Photo:© Argorin |Dreamstime.com)

By Nina Shea

July 4, 2025
3:30 pm
Los Angeles, CA

In 1999, after fleeing religious persecution by the Chinese regime, Ying Chen and her family took refuge in the United States, where they helped found Shen Yun, an artistic group affiliated with Falun Gong. Although they are now American citizens, they continue to be targeted by harassment f rom the Chinese Communist Party, which extends its repression beyond its borders. The author outlines how China uses networks of espionage and coercion within the U.S. to monitor , intimidate, and silence members of Falun Gong, as well as Uyghur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, pro-democracy dissidents, and advocates for Taiwan’ s independence . The text documents 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.

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.

Falun Gong is being targeted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) within the United States. China is working for the worldwide suppression of it, the Tibetan Buddhists, Uyghur Muslims, Chinese pro-democracy dissidents, and Taiwan independence advocates – groups the CCP calls the “Five Poisons.” This isn’t limited to cyber-attacks. A shadowy network of China’s agents, directed and funded by Beijing, are active within U.S. borders to silence and undermine the freedoms of religion and speech of Ying, and her community, as well as the other four groups.

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 reports such operations are run by China’s ministries of state security (MSS) and public security (MPS). The latter has an elite “912 Special Project Working Group,” specifically targeting Falun Gong and the other four poisons abroad. Not only does China spy and carry out influence campaigns on them — along with Americans generally — it also directs character assassinations, physical assaults, intimidation, and other coercive measures to stifle their constitutional freedoms.

“Not only does China spy and carry out influence campaigns on Americans it also directs character assassinations, physical assaults, intimidation…”

Jianwang Lu, who was charged with opening up and operating the clandestine police station, also reportedly targeted Falun Gong in 2015. An ongoing federal case alleges that Lu worked as a MPS agent to help China’s consulate disrupt a lawful Falun Gong protest. The FBIaffidavit 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.”

Beijing finds Shen Yun intolerable for performances showcasing Chinese spirituality and artistic traditions before communism and dramatizing CCP atrocities. Performing in prestigious cultural venues, its ballets are a highly visible counterpoint to China’s ballet companies, which still feature “The Red Detachment of Women,” a paean to China’s communist revolution, replete with the ballerina corps doing split leaps with raised rifles. Ying told me that Shen Yun is constantly 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 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. whistle blower 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.

Federal cases have been brought for all Five Poison groups. In 2022, Qiming Lin was charged with allegedly plotting violence at the MSS’ direction. The alleged target, a retired Christian military chaplain, was a U.S. congressional candidate in New York who criticized the CCP and had led Tiananmen protests. Court filings include a transcript of Lin’s voicemail to a private investigator in which Lin stated, “manufacture something” against the candidate, “violence would be fine too,” and “beat him until he cannot run for election. … Car accident, [he] will be completely wrecked [chuckles], right? ”

In 2023, the U.S. Attorney for New York’s Eastern District charged 40 defendants as MPS 912 agents who harassed members of the disfavored religions and Tiananmen critics. Working with an alleged Chinese agent inside an American telecommunications company, they reportedly deplatformed and disrupted the groups’ video conferences with vulgar screams and threats in the chat function. The Justice Department wrote that they aimed to “censor the political and religious speech,” of the targeted groups.

Last August, a federal jury convicted Shujun Wang, a former Columbia University visiting scholar, as an MSS spy while embedded for years within a Chinese-American pro-democracy group, where he reported on it, Uyghurs, and Tibet’s Dalai Lama. A top aide to New York’s Governor Hochul also faces spying charges after canceling Uyghur Muslim and Taiwan concerns from the governor’s agenda.

“Falun Gong, Uyghurs, and Hong Kong democracy activists report being surreptitiously followed and photographed by Chinese spies,…”

Falun Gong, Uyghurs, and Hong Kong democracy activists report being surreptitiously followed and photographed by Chinese spies, even on Washington’s National Mall. In 2023, Tibetan protestors 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.

Source: Hudson Institute