New York Times Plans Attack on Shen Yun: Investigative Report | China In Focus 2024-03-24 01:35

The New York Times has for nearly six months been preparing a hit piece against Xinyuan Performing Arts. That's what NTD's sister media, The Epoch Times, has learned. What's behind The Epoch Times' investigation, and why did The New York Times decide to target Xinyuan? They've been very eager to expand their presence, to penetrate the Chinese markets, to somehow get their product there. Even when they had a tribunal in the UK proving that the Chinese Communist Party is harvesting the organs from living Falun Gong practitioners and selling them for profit, The New York Times blocked the story. Welcome to China In Focus, I'm Tiffany Meyer. The New York Times has for nearly six months been preparing a hit piece against Xinyuan Performing Arts. That's what NTD's sister media, The Epoch Times, has learned. New York-based Xinyuan tours the globe with eight companies performing simultaneously. Xinyuan's mission? To revive traditional Chinese culture through the medium of dance and music. What did The Epoch Times' investigation find, and why did The New York Times decide to target Xinyuan? Epoch Times investigative reporter Peter Schwab and Crossroads host Joshua Phillip join us to discuss. Peter, you just released a report called The New York Times, after years of appeasing the CCP, now plans attack on Xinyuan. Now this is like the biggest media in America, The New York Times. Many people look up to this. What did you find out here? How do we know this is a hit piece that they're planning on Xinyuan? Well, the company found out about half a year ago that two reporters from The New York Times were reaching out to former artists with Xinyuan. And they were asking some questions that led the company to believe that they're trying to specifically find people who may have left the company with a grudge, and that they're specifically looking for negative information from former members of the company. And they got more specifics of what it's shaping up to be. So yeah, it looked like there was definitely an intent to gather negative information specifically. And it looked like they were trying to exclude, or they were planning to exclude positive information they would receive. We see them doing that a lot, too. We see them doing stuff like that a lot. The concern is that they're trying to cherry pick negative information based on what, of course, he was looking into, and based on the types of interviews and questions they're doing. It looks like, you know, there's one thing when you approach a story as an investigative reporter trying to just find what the story is. It's another thing when you approach a story already thinking you know the conclusion to it, and especially when you want to just write off half the picture, you know what I mean? If you're just focusing on people who left the country with a grudge, of course you're going to get one type of view of it. And I think that's what you were looking into with this, right? To Josh's point of cherry picking, in your article you point out some specific questions these dancers were being asked. Give us an example of that. How did we know this was going to be a negative piece? Well, I think one specific person, she was a bit disturbed by what the reporters were asking her. They basically reached out to her to ask specifically about a dance injury she had during a performance years ago. And they kind of suggested in the email that part of the story would try to make it look like that the dancers are not receiving proper medical care when they get injured during practice or performing on stage. And she was a bit upset about that because that was not her experience. So we reached out to other people, former dancers, current dancers, students at two schools that are affiliated with Shen Yun, and the students have a chance to audition for tours with Shen Yun if their skill reaches that level. They can actually go on a tour as part of their practicum. So we talked to their parents, their teachers, tried to find out if there's anything to that, and they were all very empathetic about this, that this is just not true. Quite the opposite, in fact. It turned out they have quite rigorous monitoring of the physical fitness of the dancers, specifically to make sure that they're really in top shape. So it really seemed like it's exactly the opposite of what the reporters were trying to insinuate. And on that too, I mean, I know Peter was looking into this. If you look at the stats based on normal injuries in ballet, for example, it looks like it's significantly lower with Shen Yun. Like people get injured less, actually. And so if you crunch the numbers, it doesn't line up with what they appear to be looking into. And frankly, the facts and even documented cases of dancers getting injured there and getting, of course, proper treatment also goes just right in the face of what New York Times seems to be trying to cobble together. And so I think the big question with that was, well, why are they doing it? Are there other reasons why they might want to be making what looks to be just a preconceived hit piece on Shen Yun? And I think that's where he started looking into, of course, the China ties and such. Because that's the big concern is fine, the media wanting to do a biased article. That's one thing. It's another thing if that biased article is aligning with, say, foreign government like disinformation, like real, not the name calling type, but actual, like from the Chinese Communist Party, being used for what's really a genocide in China, framing that as a narrative against an American company, taking what is just false claims and amplifying it in order to target people. The question is, why are they doing it, I think? Peter, speaking of this, Shen Yun is a performing arts company, right? Why target Shen Yun? What's the significance here? Well, it's a very significant performance art company. Basically, for one thing, it's a huge company. They have eight troops, each with its own orchestra. They tour every year. They perform for like a million people every year. So it's a very big company. It's a company that showcases traditional Chinese culture. And they specifically have a kind of tagline, China before communism. So they're presenting a very different view of what Chinese culture is, basically focusing on kind of the essence of the traditional culture and more kind of the spiritual underpinning of it. And that is actually, from what I've gathered from a couple of interviews with experts on China and on communist regimes, is that it challenges the Chinese regime at a particularly vulnerable place. It's kind of upstream from politics and the cultural realm, where they're saying, actually, they're presenting something that this is what China could look like. This is the kind of the authentic culture that is distinct from kind of the culture tainted by the imported communist ideology. On that note, Josh, you actually did a whole in-depth report in South Korea of the Chinese regime trying to stop this American company from performing in South Korea. What did you find in that aspect? Why were they trying to stop this being performed in a democratic ally of the U.S.? Well, and this is why this story is so big. The Chinese Communist Party mobilizes its forces all around the world, its consulates, secret agents, and their own doctrine, even getting journalists, they say it, getting foreign journalists to do it for them in order to attack Shen Yun. In Korea, I was there for almost a month between two different trips. What we found was that the Chinese, we had the letter, the Chinese consulate there in South Korea had sent a letter to KBS, which is a government run, you know, it's a TV station, but they have a big theater in Korea. They were threatening the South Koreans with just tons of money in financial damages, like a ridiculous amount of money if they held Shen Yun. So if they allowed this American performing arts company to perform in South Korea, the CCP was going to punish South Korea with just massive financial damages. And we find them doing that like country by country, theater by theater, even in the U.S. In fact, Shen Yun, there was recently a report that went out. One of the human rights groups, Falun Dafa Information Center, they just did a big investigation. They found there's been over 130 cases documented where the Chinese Communist Party has done things exactly like this. And Peter, on that note, when it comes to this Chinese Communist Party's sabotage of Shen Yun, what did you find in terms of the media aspect? Josh was talking about maybe other countries and even the governments, but what did you find out in terms of the media? There has been some cases. For example, I remember, that was many years ago, but the Czech National Television, when Shen Yun was performing in Prague, a couple of the artists were interviewed on Czech television. And before the interview started, the host said, well, we received this letter from the Chinese consulate, from the Chinese embassy in Prague, and they're trying to convince us that we shouldn't interview these artists, that it could damage relations with China. Well, but this is, and they were quite honest about it, this is not China. And so they showed the letter on camera and they said, well, we can interview whoever we want. In China, it's perhaps a bit different. And so that was, I think, the first example I saw, but yeah, there's definitely been, for example, we've obtained an internal document from the CCP where they specifically talk about in their fight against Shen Yun, they need to have foreign media that have more credibility overseas to publish the propaganda for them, to do the attack for them. So it's definitely something they're focusing on. From that point, you have a quote in your article that talks about how getting this story in the New York Times would be a dream come true for the Chinese Communist Party. Josh, you've covered a lot about subversion tactics. How do you read that? What is the significance of that aspect? This is an old tactic. This is exactly what the Soviet Union does when they were still in power. It's exactly what the CCP does. In fact, there's a great book on this, Disinformation, by Ian Mihaly-Pacheco, one of the highest ranking defectors from the Soviet bloc to the US. What he describes is that the way that Soviet or communist disinformation works is they would try to use credible media in other countries. Because you know, if they have CCTV or like the Chinese state-run media run a hit piece on Shen Yun, people are like, yeah, of course they're saying it. You know, it's the CCP, they see it as a threat to their power. But if they, for example, can influence a journalist at a credible, what seems to be a credible or respected news outlet in the United States and get them to run the propaganda, for them that is more effective. On that note, Peter, you bring up in your article how the New York Times actually has a history of misrepresenting the Falun Gong, which ties into Shen Yun. Tell us about that. When did this start? Well, I think this ties into why the CCP considers Falun Gong, well, why it considers Shen Yun such a big threat also, because it was started by Falun Gong practitioners. And Falun Gong meditation practice, very popular in China during the 90s. And then in 1999, the CCP started kind of big persecution campaign, like a political campaign, cultural style revolution, a cultural revolution style kind of campaign against Falun Gong to eradicate it. And it's been a big thorn in their side because it's proven basically impossible. They haven't been able to do anything about Falun Gong in China. They were able to suppress it to some degree, but it's still there. It's not going away. And basically, the ability of Falun Gong practitioners, kind of the diaspora overseas, to found a huge performing arts company that's kind of directly challenging the Communist Party in the cultural realm, they see that as a direct threat to the existence of the regime itself. So I think that's the connection there. Of course, Falun Gong has long been kind of third rail issue for the CCP. They react very strongly when it's even kind of broached during diplomatic talks and things like that. So it's really the most sensitive topic for the CCP. On that note, you have an interesting example in your report about how when the persecution was launched in China against the Falun Gong, right, which is based on the tenets of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance, the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal had critical pieces of the regime and their persecution. Meanwhile, the New York Times was basically towing the party lines, calling the Falun Gong a cult or even an evil cult. Given that change in narrative, Josh, how do you read that? Why do we have, say, the Wall Street Journal and these other institutions of American democracy, if you will, criticizing a regime, but then someone, something like The New York Times basically towing the party line? It's a track record for The New York Times, as Peter mentioned as well. That was the same newspaper that defended the Soviet Union when the Soviet Union was starving people to death and causing tens of millions of deaths. That was the same New York Times that tried covering up the Holocaust and basically assisted Hitler by doing so. It's a pattern with them where they criticize the victims, ironically, in some of the key cases and defend what are communist or socialist regimes. The Nazis were socialist, of course, National Socialism. It's the same thing. And when you're dealing with Falun Gong, look, a hundred million people persecuted by their own government, people who are just trying to meditate and be good people, and they're labeled and attacked by the Chinese Communist Party. Even the CCP, when they tried proving Falun Gong was a cult, they couldn't do it. They couldn't do it. They came back and they said it's actually beneficial to the society, right? And so New York Times based their reporting off of CCP propaganda, it seems, did not do proper representation, even based on what has been, since then, really deep analysis on Falun Gong, showing it's not a cult, showing it's not evil, showing that, yeah, there's massive evidence of serious human rights abuses, including live organ harvesting. And we even have reports, Peter covers this as well, that even when they had a tribunal in the UK proving that the Chinese Communist Party is harvesting the organs from living Falun Gong practitioners and selling them for profit, the New York Times blocked the story. You have to ask, why is the New York Times doing this over and over and over again, historically leading up right to today? On that note, Peter, what are the New York Times vested interests in China? Why are they doing this? Is it money? What is it? They've been very eager to expand their presence there, their reporting team to recruit local reporters, Chinese reporters, to kind of penetrate the Chinese markets to somehow get their product there. So they've been very eager to do that, despite many setbacks, actually, because from time to time they publish something that the CCP doesn't like, then the CCP would kind of retaliate against them, or they would kind of get caught in a crossfire between the U.S. and China like during the Trump administration, where a bunch of their correspondents were expelled by the CCP. I think even a former executive editor of the New York Times, she came out in her book saying that after they published an expose on the family wealth of former Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, the CCP banned their website in China and expelled their reporters. But the publisher of the paper was trying to kind of write an apologetic letter to the CCP and are trying to kind of appease the regime again, try to find a way to get back in. It really seems to be very important for them to have the China presence. They kind of pride themselves on being able to harness that, and it just inevitably gives the CCP a leverage to kind of play those bargaining chips. And Josh, lastly and finally, there's a visceral effect of all of this. You were just down in Chicago, the Chicago O'Hare International Airport, where senior dancers who are either U.S. citizens or have valid visas were interrogated by a customs officer, basically towing the CCP talking points. Tell us about that. What is at stake here? Yeah. So I was just in Chicago, Shen Yun Performing Arts, again, we've been talking about Shen Yun for a bit now. Shen Yun, one of the dance companies was traveling, they were doing performances in Germany. They were heading to Chicago. And when they traveled to Chicago, O'Hare International Airport, they're held up by this customs officer who's speaking with a mainland Chinese accent. And he starts questioning them, you know, are you follies? He says that they're Falun Gong. He says that they're Shen Yun. He says they're illegal. He says they're political. Like what is this? Now, in the United States, you're allowed to have your own beliefs. You're allowed to have religion. You know, Falun Gong is not illegal in the United States. It's perfectly respected. It's, you know, generally well treated by the U.S. government to an extent, just like any other religion. You can have your own political views in this country. Opposing the Chinese Communist Party, last I checked, is not illegal in the United States. And so this customs officer did not seem to be enforcing U.S. law. It seemed like he was trying to enforce the laws of the Chinese Communist Party. And he was even going around to other customs officers, making a scene, holding up other, again, members of the dance company from Shen Yun. And you know, even some of them were U.S. citizens. One of the main people we interviewed, for example, she was a U.S. citizen. She's from Texas. She's as American as I am. And this customs officer is harassing her about her faith? Like since when is this the case? Since when is this legal, frankly? And you know, it does raise, I think, a question of, we don't know the guy's background. We don't know, you know, we don't know where he's from. We're trying to figure it out still. There's some members of Congress are calling for investigations into the incident. Maybe we'll get some answers soon. But I think the concern is that people are either being affected by Chinese Communist Party disinformation, or maybe New York Times disinformation at this point. Maybe it's a maybe it's the same thing. I don't know. Right. Maybe it's the same thing. But without a doubt, this individual brainwashed by whatever the CCP has been spouting, was trying to enforce CCP law on American soil against American citizens. Quite shocking, indeed. Joshua Phillip, Peter Schwab, thank you both so much for joining us. Thank you. What an insightful conversation with Epoch Times investigative reporter Peter Schwab and Crossroads host Joshua Phillip. Thank you for joining us for this special report. Please join me for China in Focus here on NTD News. See you soon.