Chinese Communist Party ‘threatened to shoot Keir Starmer’ over Shen Yun dance troupe

You will have seen them. The huge, sprawling adverts pasted on the side of the London Underground tube tunnel with a woman sprinting mid-air.

The adverts are for Shen Yun, a US-based dance and music troupe who have sold out performances across the world.

They have recently completed a number of UK shows in Birmingham, Oxford and London over the years after launching in 2006.

But behind the scenes the group is facing something much more sinister – bomb threats on the capital and even a threat to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

While in Oxford last week, they received an email written in Chinese from an email address they didn’t recognise. It read: ‘If you insist on having Shen Yun perform, you will experience a surprise terrorist attack. I am not joking with you.’

And in Birmingham over New Year’s, another, written in English, said: ‘Cancel the Shen Yun performance, or British prime minister Keir Starmer will be shot from a distance!’

But this is hardly unusual for them. In fact, over the 19 years, there has been more than 158 incidents of threats across their world tours.

Last February, they received a bomb threat ahead of a show in Northampton.

It read: ‘Many explosives have been placed in the theater. If the Shen Yun show starts, we will detonate these explosives. Blow the theater to rubble! This is no joke!’

In Woking, they received a similar threat, but this time the audience were ‘all about to be shot’ if the show went ahead.

All the shows did indeed go ahead. Leeshai Lemish, an MC for the group, told Metro that they are more than used to the threats, but they take every single one seriously.

He said: ‘All of them get reported to the police, who are thorough in searching the premises. But they have all been hoaxes.’

‘The government do not like what we stand for’

They have received so many because they disagree with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over what they consider to be a part of their ‘traditional culture’.

The show, which was first founded in 2006, wanted to revive the five thousand years of Chinese culture before the CCP.

This includes classic and folk dances and showcasing religions such as Buddhism and Taoism before the CCP took control.

But they are operated by a new religious movement called Falun Gong, which Beijing claims promotes anti-science views and self-immolation.

‘For a long time we could not trace it’

But Shen Yun, which puts on performances around the world every year, is merely a few hours of singing and dancing.

Currently, they have to travel with security guarding their buses and hotel rooms at night.

Leeshai said: ‘We had one incident where our tyres got slashed so we couldn’t go anywhere. We have also had rape threats against our female performers, which means we need security in our hotels too.’

For years, the group have dealt with the threats – sent to them or the theatres – with the suspicion they were coming from China.

But one particularly bad incident in Taiwan helped put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

When the group arrived in Taiwan last March, one theatre they were due to perform at received so many threats, the country’s intelligence services got involved, along with Canada and the US.

An investigation was later launched by Canada’s Foreign Interference Commission, which said it believed the CCP was responsible.

The report said: ‘We suspect the threats were coordinated by the Chinese regime, as the CCP has conducted a global campaign to silence and malign Shen Yun since the company’s founding in 2006.

‘Earlier this year the Falun Dafa Information Center, a U.S. based human rights organization, documented 135 incidents of interference with Shen Yun performances in 38 countries.

‘Leaked CCP documents as well as the fact that Chinese diplomats were the primary actors in 81 out of the 135 incidents indicate that this campaign originates from the very top of the CCP.’

A Thames Valley Police spokesperson said: ‘Thames Valley Police was informed of a bomb threat directed at the Shen Yun performing arts group on 10 January 2026.

‘The incident was reviewed by Counter Terrorism Policing, who assessed the information and confirmed there was no credible threat to the performance scheduled for their performance on the same day.

‘Enquiries are still ongoing in this investigation.

‘We take all reports of this nature extremely seriously and our priority is always to ensure the safety of the public.’

A Home Office spokesperson said: ‘The safety and security of individuals in the United Kingdom is of the utmost importance.

‘Any attempts by a foreign state to coerce, intimidate, harass, or harm individuals on UK soil are considered a threat to our national security and sovereignty, and will never be tolerated.’

Metro approached West Midlands Police and Northampton Police for comment.

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