Since August 2024, the New York Times has ramped up attacks on Shen Yun Performing Arts, a renowned organization dedicated to reviving the traditional Chinese culture that the Chinese Communist Party uprooted and violently silenced during Mao’s Cultural Revolution — and continues to do so today.

The frequency of the hit pieces borders on obsession, with the Times publishing 10 articles on the topic within the past six months.

The timing and focus of the New York Times’ articles coincide with the CCP’s broader strategy of transnational repression.

These stories, authored by “investigative reporter” Nicole Hong and co-author Michael Rothfeld, allege mistreatment of performers and financial improprieties within Shen Yun. Over 60% of Hong’s articles since August have been focused solely on discrediting Shen Yun. Why the obsession? A closer examination of Hong’s background and potential connections to the CCP raises questions about the impartiality and motivations behind her reporting.

Hong’s CCP connections

Hong has been with the New York Times since 2019. She previously worked at the Wall Street Journal, where she once told an interviewer:

We have a massive platform at the Journal. We have millions of readers. The editing process is very tough. When these big pieces come out — things we’ve been investigating for weeks — they’re bulletproof. People are going to talk about it.

That standard appears to be absent at the Times, which has become known for embarrassing itself in the Trump era.

Despite her professional credentials, Hong’s familial connections merit scrutiny over her ability to remain impartial.

Her father, George Hong, is a professor at Fordham University in New York and holds several significant positions within organizations closely linked to the CCP.

For example, he serves as a visiting professor at Zhejiang University and Jiangxi Normal University, both linked to the CCP. The former is a public university affiliated with China’s Ministry of Education, while the latter is co-sponsored by the Ministry of Education and the communist Jiangxi provincial government.

More notably, he was an honorary overseas director of the Western Returned Scholars Association, part of the CCP’s United Front Work Department. This agency gathers intelligence on individuals and organizations inside and outside of China to attack opposition and has been described as “the most powerful association” by Chinese media. In 2023, Chinese dictator Xi Jinping called on WRSA to rally talent worldwide to bolster its efforts.

Given George Hong’s prominent role within the WRSA, questions arise about potential biases and influences that may extend to his daughter. An overwhelming majority of children share their parents’ political affiliation, which would help explain why Nicole Hong is pushing false, CCP-friendly narratives.

And she’s not the only one with a potential conflict of interest.

CCP ties beyond Hong

Hong’s articles are co-written with Michael Rothfeld. Before 1979, the United States and the People's Republic of China had never established formal diplomatic relations. In 1979, Rothfeld was a member of the first cultural delegation from the United States to China, raising further questions about possible biases.

So shoddy is Hong and Rothfeld’s reporting that even the supposed victims they cite contradict their claims.

In their debut August article alleging that Shen Yun mistreats its performers, Hong and Rothfeld highlight untreated injuries and emotional abuse. They claim performers were discouraged from seeking medical care and were financially exploited, subjecting young performers to extensive rehearsal schedules with minimal pay.

However, the performers mentioned in Hong and Rothfeld’s reporting outright contradicted their claims.

One performer, Eugene Liu, was portrayed as a victim — a characterization he flatly denies. Liu, who performed from 2015 to 2017, publicly refuted their claims, stating that his experience with Shen Yun was overwhelmingly positive. He credited his time with the dance company for his subsequent artistic successes and for helping him avoid common pitfalls among his peers, such as internet addiction and substance abuse. Liu said he spoke out due to fear that Hong’s second-rate reporting would undermine Shen Yun’s mission to highlight the persecution of Falun Gong adherents in China.

The only expert quoted in Hong and Rothfeld’s debut report is Nicholas Bequelin from Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center — which the U.S. Department of Education previously investigated for taking money from the CCP.

Shen Yun’s violent opponents

Most damning of all, a Chinese American YouTuber, who calls Falun Gong his enemy, claimed on social media to have been the catalyst for the Times’ reporting — and personally assisted them.

After Hong and Rothfeld’s debut article, he posted on X, “I was the one who introduced people to the New York Times, especially for the initial interviews [to discredit Shen Yun].” He was later arrested and charged after being discovered carrying an illegal firearm near a Shen Yun event. Even if he was lying about his involvement in the reporting, his statements still illustrate that Shen Yun’s critics are more than willing to resort to violence.

The timing and focus of the New York Times articles coincide with the CCP’s broader strategy of transnational repression. According to Freedom House, a nonprofit that advocates democracy, political freedom, and human rights, China conducts a “sophisticated” and “comprehensive” campaign of transnational repression, aiming to control and influence narratives about its policies and practices abroad. The CCP has targeted Falun Gong in particular since 1999 with its campaign to “eradicate” the religion to maintain state atheism.

China has detained Falun Gong practitioners for “reeducation through labor,” tortured 2,000 to death as of 2009, and killed 65,000 to harvest their organs between 2000 and 2008. Even in the absence of more up-to-date statistics, the numbers remain shocking.

And this is the party “America’s newspaper of record” has chosen to side with.