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Chinese Consul Must Immediately Stop Compromising U.S. Sovereignty by Interfering With U.S. Government Officials and Shen Yun
SAN FRANCISCO—Chinese consul general Mr. Gao Zhansheng must immediately stop his direct attack on a
U.S.-based performing arts company and his attempts to threaten a U.S. official, urging them not to attend a
performance because he does not approve of its content. This amounts to the compromising of U.S. sovereignty.
On January 18, 2012 Gao Zhansheng, the Chinese consul general in San Francisco, urged a Seattle City
councilor not to provide a proclamation or letter of support to the Shen Yun Performing Arts dance company,
not to attend its performances, and not to give media interviews related to the show—in the form of a letter. The
councilor’s name is being withheld at the request of his office, but a copy of the offending letter can be viewed
upon request.
The reasons for the interference are clear. Shen Yun Performing Arts was established with the mission of
reviving 5,000 years of divinely inspired Chinese culture through the arts—a culture which the Chinese
communist regime has actively tried to destroy, most notably during the Cultural Revolution. Also, Shen Yun is
being presented in Seattle by the Washington State Falun Dafa Association. In its performances, Shen Yun has
included dances that depict the Chinese state’s ongoing persecution of Falun Gong, the traditional Chinese
meditation discipline—one of the last bastions of traditional Chinese culture remaining in China today.
Falun Gong practitioners have been targeted by the Chinese regime in the U.S. for years, prompting the U.S.
House of Representatives to pass House Concurrent Resolution 304 in 2004, calling on the Chinese regime to
cease and desist persecuting Falun Gong practitioners in China and “interfering in the exercise of religious and
political freedoms within the U.S.” There have been a number of other strongly-worded congressional
resolutions since, the most recent in 2010.
We must send a strong message to the Chinese authorities, that interfering with U.S. government affairs
on U.S. soil is totally unacceptable behavior. We must not allow a foreign communist regime to tell U.S. officials what they can and cannot see or do, in our country.
Event: Exposing Chinese Consul’s Attack on American Sovereignty
Place: Chinese consulate in San Francisco, 1450 Laguna St.
Time: Press conference 1:00-1:30pm; General protest 10am-3pm
Background:
Falun Gong (also called Falun Dafa) is a practice of meditation and exercises with teachings based on the
principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance. Fearing its size and independence, the Chinese
Communist Party initiated a campaign to suppress Falun Gong in 1999 through hate propaganda, mass
imprisonment, and torture. To date human rights organizations around the world have documented tens of
thousands of torture cases and thousands of deaths.
The U.S. State Department and The Congressional Executive Commission on China (CECC) both cite estimates of hundreds of thousands of practitioners being detained in Chinese forced labor camps. The CECC said the persecution of Falun Gong, in its scope and severity, exceeds anything else the commission has seen since it
began conducting its annual reviews on China's human rights record.
SAN FRANCISCO—Chinese consul general Mr. Gao Zhansheng must immediately stop his direct attack on a
U.S.-based performing arts company and his attempts to threaten a U.S. official, urging them not to attend a
performance because he does not approve of its content. This amounts to the compromising of U.S. sovereignty.
On January 18, 2012 Gao Zhansheng, the Chinese consul general in San Francisco, urged a Seattle City
councilor not to provide a proclamation or letter of support to the Shen Yun Performing Arts dance company,
not to attend its performances, and not to give media interviews related to the show—in the form of a letter. The
councilor’s name is being withheld at the request of his office, but a copy of the offending letter can be viewed
upon request.
The reasons for the interference are clear. Shen Yun Performing Arts was established with the mission of
reviving 5,000 years of divinely inspired Chinese culture through the arts—a culture which the Chinese
communist regime has actively tried to destroy, most notably during the Cultural Revolution. Also, Shen Yun is
being presented in Seattle by the Washington State Falun Dafa Association. In its performances, Shen Yun has
included dances that depict the Chinese state’s ongoing persecution of Falun Gong, the traditional Chinese
meditation discipline—one of the last bastions of traditional Chinese culture remaining in China today.
Falun Gong practitioners have been targeted by the Chinese regime in the U.S. for years, prompting the U.S.
House of Representatives to pass House Concurrent Resolution 304 in 2004, calling on the Chinese regime to
cease and desist persecuting Falun Gong practitioners in China and “interfering in the exercise of religious and
political freedoms within the U.S.” There have been a number of other strongly-worded congressional
resolutions since, the most recent in 2010.
We must send a strong message to the Chinese authorities, that interfering with U.S. government affairs
on U.S. soil is totally unacceptable behavior. We must not allow a foreign communist regime to tell U.S. officials what they can and cannot see or do, in our country.
Event: Exposing Chinese Consul’s Attack on American Sovereignty
Place: Chinese consulate in San Francisco, 1450 Laguna St.
Time: Press conference 1:00-1:30pm; General protest 10am-3pm
Background:
Falun Gong (also called Falun Dafa) is a practice of meditation and exercises with teachings based on the
principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance. Fearing its size and independence, the Chinese
Communist Party initiated a campaign to suppress Falun Gong in 1999 through hate propaganda, mass
imprisonment, and torture. To date human rights organizations around the world have documented tens of
thousands of torture cases and thousands of deaths.
The U.S. State Department and The Congressional Executive Commission on China (CECC) both cite estimates of hundreds of thousands of practitioners being detained in Chinese forced labor camps. The CECC said the persecution of Falun Gong, in its scope and severity, exceeds anything else the commission has seen since it
began conducting its annual reviews on China's human rights record.