Freedom is fragile. It does not disappear overnight but is eroded piece by piece, through intimidation, censorship, and fear. When foreign regimes can dictate what Americans watch, support, or even speak about, we are no longer just witnesses to oppression; we are complicit in it.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has spent years trying to erase Shen Yun, the world-renowned performing arts group dedicated to reviving China’s pre-communist heritage. The group represents a China where faith, tradition, and moral values thrived before the Communist Party’s iron grip.
What should have remained China’s internal struggle against free expression has now become America’s problem. On February 16, a bomb threat forced the evacuation of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where Shen Yun was performing. No explosives were found, but the message was clear: someone wanted the show shut down.
For years, world leaders have tiptoed around China’s human rights abuses, prioritizing trade deals over moral responsibility. President Trump broke the cycle.
While past administrations did too little to confront the CCP’s oppression of religious minorities, President Trump has taken action to hold Beijing accountable. He is the first U.S. president to sanction Chinese officials for their role in the persecution of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, where over a million people have been sent to concentration camps, subjected to forced labor, and stripped of their fundamental rights.
President Trump also called out the brutal suppression of followers of Christ in China, where underground churches are raided, pastors are imprisoned, and state-sanctioned Christian congregations face increasing restrictions.
All major religious groups are required to be “patriotic” by pledging allegiance to the ruling party in China. Under the CCP, the Bible has been rewritten to align with Communist doctrine, religious symbols have been removed, and sermons are now monitored by the state. Faith in China is subjected to the CCP’s tight control rather than personal spiritual conviction. President Trump appears to see religious oppression as an assault on human dignity.
Moral leadership means standing up for people of all faiths, including Muslims, Christians, and all those persecuted for their beliefs.
Shen Yun is more than a performance, it is a battle for the right to remember. For the CCP, history itself is a threat. Shen Yun revives a China that Beijing has spent decades trying to erase, where people lived by faith, morality, and spiritual values.
This is not new. History is the first casualty of authoritarian rule. The Islamic Republic of Iran, like the CCP, has spent decades erasing religious minorities, censoring voices of dissent, and rewriting historical narratives to fit its agenda.
I know this personally. I was raised in a Bahá’í family in Iran, a country where religious minorities have long been persecuted, erased, and treated as enemies of the state. The government systematically denied Bahá’ís education, seized their businesses, and arrested them for practicing their faith.
Followers of Christ in Iran face the same fate. House churches are raided, pastors are imprisoned, and converts from Islam are sentenced to death, all in an effort to suppress any faith that does not serve the regime’s power. We see the same playbook unfolding in China. Beijing is persecuting faith within its borders, but is also exporting its censorship worldwide.
The Kennedy Center bomb threat is a warning. Chinese suppression is now reaching into American theaters, universities, and even our government.
Corporations, media outlets, and politicians have compromised with Beijing, choosing economic convenience over moral courage. If a foreign regime can threaten a performance in Washington, D.C., what else will it try to control?
President Trump warned that China’s growing influence is more than economic, it is a direct threat to global freedom. And he was right.
Brian Taef is the Chief Executive Officer of US Millennials, Inc.
