Censorship isn’t always loud. Sometimes, it moves in silence, disguised as diplomacy, business deals, or “cultural sensitivity.” It happens in places like China or Iran, until suddenly, it’s standing at your own front door, deciding what you can see, hear, and say. That’s exactly what is happening right now in the United States as the Chinese Communist Party wages an aggressive war, not with tanks or missiles, but with threats, pressure, and censorship, all aimed at silencing a dance performance.
I know this because I’ve lived it.
I was born in Iran, where history isn’t just rewritten, it’s erased. As a religious minority under the Islamic Republic, I learned young that truth is a privilege, not a right. The government dictated what we could believe, what stories could be told, and what thoughts were safe to speak aloud. I saw firsthand what happens when a regime decides that its version of reality is the only one that can exist.
That is why, when I came to the United States and later served in the U.S. military, I didn’t take freedom for granted. I had seen what it was like to live without it. What I didn’t expect was to see the same authoritarian blueprint of censorship, intimidation, and control appearing here, not from our own government, but from a foreign regime reaching across the ocean to silence voices in America.
That regime is the Chinese Communist Party, and its latest battleground is not Beijing or Hong Kong but theaters across the United States. The target? Shen Yun, a world-renowned performing arts company dedicated to reviving China’s pre-communist heritage. A dance performance should not be a threat to anyone, yet Beijing has spent years trying to silence it. That alone should tell us something.
The reason is simple. Shen Yun represents a China that existed before the Communist Party, a China where faith, culture, and tradition thrived independent of state control. That is the version of history the CCP has spent decades trying to erase, replacing it with its own carefully crafted narrative. A government that rules by rewriting the past cannot afford for people to see an unfiltered version of it.
Inside China, that control is absolute. History is rewritten, the internet is censored, and those who step out of line disappear. But the CCP does not just silence dissent within its own borders; it works to suppress it worldwide. It pressures foreign governments, threatens businesses, and weaponizes economic leverage to control speech beyond China’s borders.
And now, it’s happening here.
Shen Yun has faced an aggressive campaign of intimidation, harassment, and censorship, not in China, but in the United States. Theaters have been pressured to cancel performances. Sponsors have been quietly warned of the consequences of supporting the show. Audience members have been harassed, and Shen Yun’s reputation has been targeted through CCP-backed propaganda and cyberattacks. If Beijing cannot control the narrative, it will do everything in its power to silence it.
This is what modern censorship looks like. It is not just outright bans but subtle, insidious pressure. The kind that makes people second-guess what they can say, what they can support, and what is worth speaking out for. It is the same playbook I saw growing up in Iran, where an oppressive regime decided what history was allowed to exist and what needed to be erased.
What should alarm every American is how quickly this kind of influence spreads. If a foreign regime can dictate what performances take place in American theaters, what else can it control? If Western institutions are willing to bow to Beijing’s pressure today, what will they censor tomorrow?
I served in the U.S. military because I believed in the principles that America stands for: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the right to speak the truth without fear of retribution. But those rights only exist if we are willing to defend them.
The CCP’s strategy has always relied on fear: the fear of punishment, of exclusion, of speaking too loudly. The only way to counter that is through courage. The courage to call out suppression when we see it. The courage to support voices that refuse to be silenced. The courage to reject censorship before it becomes so normal that we stop recognizing it at all.
Shen Yun continues to perform despite the threats and intimidation, refusing to bow to a foreign regime’s demands. The real question is not whether they will keep standing but whether we will. If we look the other way now, if we allow foreign influence to dictate what can and cannot be seen in America, then we have already surrendered something priceless. Freedom is not taken in a single moment; it erodes, piece by piece, until one day, it is simply gone.
This column is presented by TCRC.
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