How China Influenced Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Into Cancelling an Anti-Communist Show中國如何影響加拿大國家藝術中心取消反共演出
Inside China’s United Front Campaign in Canada
An access-to-information release shows a sustained, multi-year cultivation of National Arts Centre leadership by the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa — a relationship that ran in parallel with the internal decision to stop hosting Shen Yun, and against a documented global pattern of Chinese diplomatic pressure on theatres.
中文版在最下方
The decision, and the question beneath it
On July 29, 2025, CBC News reported that Ottawa's National Arts Centre would not host Shen Yun in 2026, ending a nearly two-decade relationship between the federal Crown corporation and the New York–based classical Chinese dance company.
At first glance, the decision looked like a dispute over venue rental, box-office rules, audience management, and allegations surrounding Shen Yun's internal practices. The NAC has insisted its artistic programming and rental decisions are made independently and "without external influence."
But two sets of documents now sit against that statement. The first is a 31-page release of the NAC's own records, obtained under the Access to Information Act (file ATI 2025-26 001, Part 1), covering the NAC's communications with the Chinese government. The second is a December 16, 2025 submission by the Falun Dafa Association of Ottawa, which compiles the documented record of how Chinese diplomatic missions pressure theatres that host Shen Yun. Read together, they show that the NAC was making its Shen Yun decision inside a climate of sustained foreign-state cultivation — and that this kind of cultivation, where Shen Yun is concerned, has a well-established and sometimes adjudicated track record.
One detail sharpens the timing. China's ambassador to Canada, Wang Di, arrived in Ottawa on May 24, 2024, and formally assumed his post on July 5, 2024. Barely six weeks later, on August 21, 2024, he was sitting across from the NAC's CEO. The access-to-information file records no earlier in-person meeting between NAC senior leadership and the Chinese Embassy: the new ambassador made the NAC an early priority of his posting, at the very moment the institution was beginning to weigh the future of the performing group Beijing most wants kept off Western stages. New ambassadors do meet many organizations early on — but the speed of this particular outreach, the absence of any prior face-to-face contact, and the sustained cultivation that followed are, together, part of what makes the episode worth scrutiny.
The central question is not whether Shen Yun is controversial. It clearly is. The question is whether a federal cultural institution, courted this persistently by a foreign government with a documented history of targeting exactly this performer, can credibly claim its decision was made on the merits alone.
Shen Yun is not an ordinary dance company. Closely associated with Falun Gong — the spiritual practice banned in China in 1999 — the group has been a standing target of the Chinese Communist Party, which has sought to discredit it internationally and pressure venues that host it.
The reason embassy contact matters here is that, with Shen Yun, embassy contact is not a neutral baseline. There is a documented modus operandi.
The Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC), which has tracked the campaign, describes it as the most aggressive effort of artistic censorship documented to date. By the FDIC's count, there have been more than 260 incidents targeting Shen Yun worldwide since 2006, driven since 2022 by at least five CCP directives; the FDIC's January 2024 report, Diplomatic Disruptions and Disinformation: Beijing's Global Drive to Stop Shen Yun, states that CCP central authorities have deemed suppressing Shen Yun "an important part of the … struggle against Falun Gong." These figures come from an advocacy organization aligned with Falun Gong and should be read as its own tracking — but the underlying pattern is corroborated by independent records.
Crucially, that report finds Chinese diplomats were directly involved in 81 of 135 documented interference incidents against Shen Yun — typically by contacting theatre managers or officials, in person or in writing, to spread falsehoods and signal economic reprisals. The mechanism is the same one Chen Yonglin, a First Secretary who defected from the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, described in 2005 testimony: overseas missions run a formalized "war against Falun Gong" through specialized groups operating as branches of the extrajudicial "610 Office."
The case record bears this out. In Spain in 2019, the Chinese ambassador visited Madrid's Royal Theatre and pressured management to cancel a sold-out Shen Yun performance, urging the venue to prioritize "politics" over "economic income" — pressure later confirmed by a recorded phone call. In the United States in 2009, the Chinese consulate in Houston sent a 13-page letter to a Little Rock, Arkansas venue demanding that a Shen Yun rental be refused; that theatre resisted, saying publicly it would do "what we think is the right thing" regardless of "pressure or threats."
Canada is not an exception. In 2010, after Shen Yun performed at the NAC itself, a tour-bus tire was found deliberately slashed en route to Montreal — part of a series of such attacks that risked a high-speed blowout. In 2008, the Chinese Consulate in Calgary pressured Travel Alberta into dropping a planned Shen Yun sponsorship; in 2010, a consulate-linked individual in Winnipeg warned a business owner against quietly sponsoring the Shen Yun program book; and forged, threatening emails impersonating Falun Gong practitioners were sent to the Jubilee Auditoriums in Calgary and Edmonton. More recently, hoax bomb and mass-shooting threats against Shen Yun's 2024 and 2025 tours in Mississauga, Kitchener, Montreal and Vancouver are under RCMP investigation; a Taiwanese task force reportedly traced similar threats to a Huawei research institute in Xi'an.
The targeting of Falun Gong itself by Chinese missions in Canada is, in places, a matter of official findings rather than advocacy claims. In 2005, the Edmonton Police Service's Hate Crime Unit concluded that two staff of the Calgary consulate had breached the Criminal Code's prohibition on wilfully promoting hatred by distributing anti–Falun Gong materials at the University of Alberta. In 2006, the CRTC found that terminology used by the regime's CCTV-4 broadcaster constituted abusive comment likely to expose Falun Gong to hatred. And the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, in rulings between 2006 and 2011, confirmed Falun Gong as a protected creed after a Chinese Embassy diplomat pressured a Chinese seniors' association in Ottawa to expel an elderly member for her practice.
This is the backdrop. When the embassy of this particular state cultivates the leadership of a venue weighing this particular performer, "ordinary cultural diplomacy" is not the correct frame of reference.
Inside the NAC: a decision its own staff understood as political
CBC's reporting showed that NAC staff debated the Shen Yun question for months.
In January 2025, NAC Executive Producer Heather Gibson recommended to CEO Christopher Deacon and communications executive Annabelle Cloutier that the NAC not continue with Shen Yun in 2026, citing repeated problems with contractual terms and "unspecified allegations" about the organization. Deacon initially framed it as a programming decision within Gibson's discretion. Gibson pushed back, warning she would not be the only one left dealing with the consequences — media attention, phone campaigns, meeting requests to the CEO's office — and noting that in the past, when staff made decisions about Shen Yun, the CEO had eventually overridden them. By her own account, staff-level decisions on this file did not necessarily stand.
Political pressure, from both directions
Liberal MP Judy Sgro contacted the NAC, after being approached by the Falun Dafa Association of Canada, asking for a full explanation of why Shen Yun could not secure 2026 dates. Conservative MP Garnett Genuis wrote to Deacon warning that recent CCP efforts to repress Shen Yun were "extremely concerning." The documented political pressure to host Shen Yun came from Canadian elected officials, on the record. The question this report examines is whether a quieter, opposite pressure also existed — and where it came from.
The 2025 complaints
The NAC's internal complaints sharpened after Shen Yun's 2025 run. On April 28, 2025, Gibson solicited formal comments. Supervisor Myriam Lamontagne said Shen Yun had installed its own box-office booth — which she called a breach of contract — and that staff were rebuffed when they asked it closed; she also alleged Shen Yun photographed patrons without consent and that a manager asked for a patron with disabilities to be removed mid-performance. Senior manager Robyn Gilchrist warned such incidents could expose the NAC to human-rights complaints.
Shen Yun's local organizer, Grace Wollensak, disputed the account: she said it was the NAC that removed wheelchair users after disruptions, denied any photography of patrons, and said the group was on heightened alert because of "dozens" of threats. These disputes are real and unresolved — but they are the surface. The deeper layer is in the NAC's own correspondence with the Chinese Embassy.
The paper trail: what the access-to-information release shows
What the release shows is not a directive. It is something subtler: the texture of a relationship.
The 2023 overture
The earliest document is a February 22, 2023 email to Annabelle Cloutier from a self-described embassy "staffer for cultural affairs." Its purpose is explicit: with COVID measures lifted, the embassy expected to "resume its cooperation with NAC and to bring Chinese theaters and performances back to NAC," and the minister-counsellor for cultural affairs wanted a meeting "whereby discussions will kick off." Cloutier retrieved the email from her spam folder, forwarded it to managing director Nelson McDougall and CEO Christopher Deacon, and wrote: "Probably needs a call rather than email exchange."
From the outset, two things are established: the embassy's objective in engaging the NAC was stage access for China-approved performances, and the contact went straight to the top.
National Day, and the rhythm of invitations
In September 2023, the embassy invited Deacon and McDougall to its "China Day Reception," marking the 74th anniversary of the founding of the PRC, hosted by then-ambassador Cong Peiwu. Deacon's office sent regrets, citing a scheduling conflict — a genuine point in the NAC's favour. But a reception for a foreign state's national day is a political occasion, and the embassy's phrasing — "again host its China Day Reception" — indicates a recurring fixture in an established relationship.
2024: a new ambassador, and "the advice received"
The relationship intensified with the arrival of Ambassador Wang Di in mid-2024. On June 14, 2024, the embassy invited Deacon both to Wang Di's welcome reception and to receive a personal visit from the new ambassador. Deacon told Cloutier on June 17 that Wang Di had "indicated his interest in paying me a visit at the NAC."
Then comes the most significant line in the release. On July 12, 2024, forwarding the embassy's follow-up to executive assistant Diane Lemire, Deacon wrote: "The advice received is that i should meet the Ambassador. Can you find a time - Nelson should join the meeting."
"The advice received." By his own account, Deacon's decision to host the Chinese ambassador was not simply his own — he was acting on advice, from a source the documents do not name. It may have been routine protocol guidance; it may have been something else. The NAC has not explained it. A Crown-corporation CEO describing a meeting with an authoritarian state's ambassador as something he was advised to do, by an unstated adviser, is exactly the kind of detail an institution claiming full independence should be able to account for. One further detail: the embassy's email in that chain was copied to an address at chinaculture.org, a portal within China's state cultural apparatus.
An invitation to a People's Liberation Army ceremony
The same exchange raised a second event. The embassy issued formal invitations to Deacon and Lemire, by name, to the ceremony marking the "97th Anniversary of the Chinese People's Liberation Army" on July 30, 2024 — co-hosted by Wang Di and "Defense Attaché Senior Colonel LI Yao," with a dress code of "Uniform with Ribbons or Business Attire." The chief executive of Canada's federal performing-arts institution was personally invited to a celebration of a foreign military — the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party. Whether or not it was accepted, the invitation reframes the relationship: it extended to the political and military calendar of the party-state.
The August 2024 visit, in the embassy's own words
Ambassador Wang Di's visit to the NAC went ahead on August 21, 2024. The logistics in the emails are telling: Deacon personally gave the ambassador a 30-minute tour, followed by a meeting in his office; NAC staff reserved a parking spot for the ambassador's car; an embassy staffer thanked Lemire for "making that meeting happen." The embassy had also made a "social media request," and on August 15 Lemire confirmed Deacon "is fine with picture taking and media post."
What the NAC authorized the embassy to publish is now on the record. The Chinese Embassy's own website published a readout of the meeting, noting China's interest in deeper cooperation and quoting NAC President Christopher Deacon as expressing interest in "strengthen[ing] exchanges and cooperation in the field of culture and art with the Chinese side." Embassy readouts are not neutral, and they can shade a guest's words. But the NAC has not disputed the account — and it is entirely consistent with the rest of the documentary record. An institution that says it makes decisions "without external influence" has a CEO quoted, on the foreign government's own platform, seeking closer cultural cooperation with that government.
Dinners at the ambassador's residence
The hospitality did not end at the NAC's doors. On August 26, 2024, the ambassador's "Protocol Officer" invited Deacon to dinner at the embassy's official residence, adding that "President Deacon's families, friends and colleagues are also highly welcome." The dinner was scheduled for October 15, 2024, and expanded to include McDougall and his wife. According to the Falun Dafa Association of Ottawa's submission, both Deacon and McDougall accepted. A private dinner for two senior executives and their spouses, at the official residence of an authoritarian state's ambassador, is hospitality of a personal kind — and the NAC's leadership took it.
A propaganda film, and a gift
In late November 2024, the embassy invited Deacon as a guest of honour to the opening of a "Chinese Film Festival," featuring the documentary Crafting Civilization: Beijing Central Axis. The invitation's own credits identify the bodies behind that film: the National Cultural Heritage Administration; China International Communications Group (中国外文局), a principal external-propaganda organization of the Chinese party-state; the Publicity Department of the Communist Party's Beijing Municipal Committee (北京市委宣传部); and state broadcaster CCTV. This was not arm's-length art. Then, in December 2024, the embassy delivered "the ambassador's Christmas card and a gift" to Deacon, left at the NAC's reception desk — months after an embassy staffer had written that "no gift exchange is anticipated."
2025: "bringing art groups from China to NAC"
The final documents, from April 2025, fall in the same season the NAC was assembling its case against Shen Yun. On April 30, the embassy wrote that a new cultural counsellor — named in the NAC's own subject line as "counselor Pan" — wished to visit Deacon and McDougall, together with the chairman of an organization called the Canada-China Cultural Development Association, to "discuss with you the potential possibility of bringing art groups from China to NAC in the years to come." The email characterized the whole relationship in the embassy's own words: "During your tenure, we together have initiated a series of exchange and mutual visit programs between our two countries."
That sentence closes the loop. This was not a string of unconnected courtesies but an ongoing, named program built up over Deacon's tenure — and its concrete 2025 ask was to put China-approved performing groups onto the NAC's stage. Deacon's reply was not a refusal: "Could we perhaps push this to after the tour?"
A timeline
Set against the NAC's internal Shen Yun deliberations, the chronology is this:
February 2023 — The embassy approaches NAC management, stating it expects to "bring Chinese theaters and performances back to NAC."
September 2023 — Deacon and McDougall are invited to the embassy's China Day Reception (74th PRC anniversary); Deacon's office sends regrets.
June 2024 — The embassy invites Deacon to the welcome reception for new Ambassador Wang Di and requests a visit from him.
July 12, 2024 — Deacon writes internally: "The advice received is that i should meet the Ambassador."
July 2024 — Deacon and Lemire are invited, by name, to a People's Liberation Army anniversary ceremony.
August 21, 2024 — Wang Di visits the NAC; Deacon gives a personal tour, and authorizes the embassy to publicize the meeting. The embassy later quotes Deacon seeking closer cultural cooperation "with the Chinese side."
October 15, 2024 — Deacon and McDougall (with spouses) attend a private dinner at the ambassador's residence.
November–December 2024 — Deacon is invited to a film festival featuring a CCP propaganda-organ documentary; the ambassador sends Deacon a Christmas gift.
January 2025 — NAC executive Heather Gibson recommends dropping Shen Yun for 2026.
April 2025 — The embassy's new cultural counsellor seeks a meeting to discuss "bringing art groups from China to NAC."
April 28, 2025 — Gibson solicits formal internal comments building the case against Shen Yun.
July 29, 2025 — CBC reports that the NAC will not host Shen Yun in 2026.
For roughly two and a half years, two processes ran side by side inside one institution: the embassy steadily cultivated NAC leadership and pressed for stage access, while the NAC moved step by step toward removing Beijing's most-targeted performing group from that same stage. The documents do not prove the two processes touched. They prove the two processes coexisted.
The boardroom
The cultivation captured in the emails occurred at an institution whose senior governance is unusually exposed to China-facing networks.
Board chair Guy Pratte is Senior Counsel at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, among Canada's most China-connected law firms — a 40-plus-person China practice, a Beijing representative office, and advisory work for Chinese investors in sensitive sectors including critical minerals. Senior BLG partners have served in the network of the Canada China Business Council; BLG's Calgary office hosted the CCBC's 2022 annual-meeting reception, themed on the CCP's 20th Party Congress. Pratte was appointed NAC chair in January 2023.
Vice-Chair Derral Moriyama spent 31 years at BMO Financial Group, his tenure overlapping precisely with BMO's most aggressive China expansion: the first Canadian bank licensed by Chinese regulators (2004), a role in the Bank of China's Hong Kong IPO (2006), a Shanghai branch (2008), a wholly owned mainland subsidiary (2010), and a near-20-percent stake in a trust arm of the state giant COFCO (2012). BMO's current Vice-Chair of Investment and Corporate Banking, former Liberal cabinet minister Scott Brison, is Vice-Chair of the Canada China Business Council's board.
Trustee Heather Bala Edwards has no documented direct China connection herself, but is married to N. Murray Edwards, chairman of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. — whose Horizon oil-sands project used a Sinopec subsidiary and 132 temporary workers from China, two of whom were killed in a 2007 tank-roof collapse; of 53 health-and-safety charges, all 29 against CNRL were stayed and the Sinopec parent's were withdrawn. None of this implicates Heather Edwards personally, but it places a third trustee's household in direct commercial entanglement with a Chinese state-owned enterprise.
Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe, on the board ex officio, received a courtesy call from Ambassador Wang Di in February 2025, after which Chinese state-linked summaries described him as commending the embassy's local contribution and expressing willingness to strengthen exchanges with China. There is nothing improper in a mayor engaging diplomatically — but the institutional proximity is real.
The remaining trustees identified in public records do not appear to carry significant China-facing connections.
What the documents do, and do not, show
Fairness requires stating the limits clearly. The access-to-information release contains no Beijing directive about Shen Yun, no NAC official linking the embassy relationship to the Shen Yun file, and no embassy request to drop the group. Diplomatic missions routinely invite cultural leaders to events, and the NAC did decline some invitations. Anyone claiming the release "proves" the decision was dictated from Beijing is overreading it.
But the documents — the NAC's own records — establish four things not in dispute:
First, the relationship was sustained and continuous, February 2023 to April 2025, and amounted, in the embassy's own words, to "a series of exchange and mutual visit programs."
Second, its stated purpose, repeated throughout, was access: to "bring Chinese theaters and performances back to NAC," and to discuss "bringing art groups from China to NAC in the years to come."
Third, NAC leadership engaged this relationship at the most senior level — a personal tour for the ambassador, a publicized meeting, dinners for executives and spouses at the ambassador's residence, an accepted gift — and was courted toward occasions that were not neutral: a national-day reception, a PLA anniversary, a propaganda-organ film. The NAC's CEO is on record, on the embassy's own website, seeking closer cultural cooperation "with the Chinese side."
Fourth, the relationship was asymmetric. The embassy initiated, invited, hosted, gifted and pressed; the NAC accepted, accommodated and authorized the publicity. The word "exchange" recurs in the emails; genuine reciprocity does not.
The central question
Influence does not always work through explicit instructions. It works through elite networks, professional caution, reputational risk, diplomatic normalization — and the quiet calculation that some controversies are not worth the trouble.
That is the relevance of these documents. The question is not whether the Chinese Embassy ordered the NAC to drop Shen Yun. It is whether an institution that, for two and a half years, had been hosting that embassy's ambassador, dining at his residence, accepting his gifts, and entertaining his government's standing request for stage access — while that same government runs a globally documented campaign to keep Shen Yun off Western stages — can credibly claim its decision about Shen Yun was made in a vacuum.
The NAC says it can. Its own records, and the pattern surrounding them, make that claim hard to take at face value. An institution does not need to receive an order to reach the outcome a sustained foreign cultivation campaign favours.
For years, Beijing has worked to isolate Falun Gong and portray Shen Yun as illegitimate, and the lawyer David Matas has warned that excluding Shen Yun risks turning Canadian cultural institutions into "a paving stone" in that campaign. The NAC's decision cannot be treated simply as a quarrel over box-office booths. It is a test of whether a Canadian federal cultural institution can keep its stage independent of a foreign government that has spent years trying to decide who performs on it — and the deeper one reads into the NAC's own correspondence, the harder that test becomes to pass.
If a national cultural institution in Canada’s capital, funded by the federal government, ultimately decides to exclude a particular performing arts group in the context of a prolonged campaign of influence and lobbying by a foreign government, then this is about far more than a dispute over programming decisions. It raises fundamental questions about Canada’s sovereignty, cultural independence, and the freedoms of expression and association enjoyed by its citizens.
Regardless of one’s views of Shen Yun itself, no foreign government should have the power to determine who is permitted to perform on a Canadian stage. If that line is crossed, the damage extends far beyond a single performing arts group. What is at stake are the very principles that underpin Canada as a free and democratic society.
Sources and notes
National Arts Centre, Access to Information release, file ATI 2025-26 001, Part 1 — communications between the NAC and the Chinese government, including the Chinese Embassy (emails of February and September 2023; June, July, August, November and December 2024; and April 2025).
Falun Dafa Association of Ottawa, "Appendix V — Chinese Embassy Engagement with NAC Management and Documented Suppression Efforts by the Chinese Embassy in Canada and Globally," December 16, 2025.
CBC News, coverage of the NAC's decision not to host Shen Yun in 2026, July 29, 2025.
Falun Dafa Information Center, Diplomatic Disruptions and Disinformation: Beijing's Global Drive to Stop Shen Yun, January 2024 — incident counts and the finding that Chinese diplomats were directly involved in 81 of 135 documented interference incidents. (Advocacy source; figures reflect the organization's own tracking.)
Falun Dafa Information Center, transnational-repression incident tracker (data tracked since late 2023).
Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Canada, official website readout of Ambassador Wang Di's meeting with NAC executives — ca.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/sgxw/202502/t20250228_11565466.htm.
Chen Yonglin, 2005 testimony on the role of Chinese diplomatic missions and the "610 Office" in overseas suppression of Falun Gong.
Spain (2019) — reporting on the Chinese ambassador's intervention at Madrid's Royal Theatre, including the recorded phone call (leeshailemish.com).
United States (2009) — Epoch Times reporting on the Chinese consulate in Houston and the Robinson Center Music Hall, Little Rock, Arkansas.
Canada-specific incidents — drawn from Foreign Interference & Repression of Falun Gong in Canada (Falun Dafa Association of Canada): the 2010 NAC tour-bus tire incident; the 2008 Calgary consulate / Travel Alberta case; the 2010 Winnipeg case; the Jubilee Auditoriums smear emails; and the 2024–2025 hoax threats under RCMP investigation.
Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, decisions of 2006 and 2011 confirming Falun Gong as a protected creed (CanLII).
CRTC, Public Notice 2006-166, on abusive comment against Falun Gong in CCTV-4 broadcasts.
Edmonton Police Service Hate Crime Unit, 2005 report on anti–Falun Gong material distributed by Calgary consulate staff.
Ambassador Wang Di's appointment timeline — arrival in Ottawa on May 24, 2024, per the Chinese Embassy's own website (ca.china-embassy.gov.cn) and Ambassador Wang's July 17, 2024 byline in the Hill Times; formally assumed office July 5, 2024, per standard diplomatic records.
NAC trustees' business and institutional affiliations — drawn from public corporate, firm and government records.
Names of embassy staff and certain third parties are withheld in the access-to-information release under the Act's personal-information exemption. Figures attributed to the Falun Dafa Information Center and the Falun Dafa Association reflect those organizations' own tracking and are identified as such; matters of official record (tribunal, CRTC and police findings) are noted separately.
譯文摘要：
中國大使館如何一步步接近加拿大國家藝術中心？神韻遭取消背後的文件紀錄
一份透過加拿大《資訊公開法》（Access to Information Act）取得的文件顯示，中國駐加拿大大使館多年來持續經營與加拿大國家藝術中心（National Arts Centre，NAC）高層的關係。而在此期間，NAC內部恰好也正在討論是否停止繼續主辦神韻藝術團演出。
這些文件與法輪大法組織整理的全球案例相互對照後，呈現出一個值得加拿大社會正視的問題：一家聯邦文化機構，在長期受到中國政府接觸和影響的情況下，是否仍能令人信服地宣稱，其有關神韻的決定完全不受外部因素影響？
一項決定，以及背後更大的疑問
2025年7月29日，CBC報導指出，渥太華國家藝術中心將不再安排神韻藝術團於2026年演出，結束雙方近二十年的合作關係。
表面上看，這似乎只是一起涉及場地租賃、票務管理、觀眾秩序以及外界對神韻內部管理質疑的商業爭議。
NAC方面則表示，其藝術節目安排與場地租賃決定均由機構獨立作出，「不受任何外部影響」。
然而，兩份如今公開的文件卻讓這一說法變得不那麼簡單。
第一份是NAC根據《資訊公開法》公開的31頁內部文件（ATI 2025-26 001, Part 1），記錄了該機構與中國政府及中國駐加拿大大使館之間的往來。
第二份則是渥太華法輪大法協會於2025年12月提交的報告，系統整理了中國外交機構多年來在世界各地打壓神韻演出的相關案例。
如果將兩份資料放在一起閱讀，可以發現：在NAC討論是否終止神韻演出的同時，中國使館也正在持續加深與NAC高層之間的關係。
文件本身並未顯示中國政府直接要求NAC取消神韻演出，但它們揭示了一個更值得關注的現象——長期且持續的政治與文化影響力運作。
神韻為何成為中共的目標？
神韻藝術團總部設於美國紐約，與法輪功團體有密切關聯。
自1999年中共開始全面鎮壓法輪功以來，神韻便成為北京長期打擊的對象。
多年來，中國政府不僅試圖在國際社會抹黑神韻，也持續向世界各地的劇院和演出機構施壓，希望阻止其登台演出。
因此，當中國使館主動接觸一家正在考慮是否續辦神韻演出的劇院時，這種互動並不能簡單被視為一般的文化外交。
因為在神韻問題上，中國外交系統本身就有明確且長期的干預紀錄。
根據法輪大法資訊中心（Falun Dafa Information Center）統計，自2006年至今，全球已記錄超過260宗針對神韻的干擾事件。
該中心於2024年發表的研究報告指出，在135宗有明確紀錄的干預事件中，有81宗直接涉及中國外交官員。
最常見的方式包括：
致函劇院管理層；
親自拜訪劇院負責人；
散播關於神韻的不實資訊；
暗示若繼續演出可能影響與中國的經貿關係；
透過當地親中團體施加壓力。
這種模式並非理論推測，而是有具體案例支持。
2019年，西班牙馬德里皇家劇院原定舉辦神韻演出。根據事後曝光的錄音，中國駐西班牙大使親自向劇院施壓，要求取消演出，並表示應將「政治」置於「經濟利益」之上。
2009年，美國阿肯色州小石城的一家劇院收到中國駐休士頓總領館長達13頁的信件，要求拒絕神韻租用場地。
劇院最終公開表示，不會因為外國政府的壓力而改變決定。
加拿大同樣發生過類似事件。
2008年，中國駐卡加利總領館成功施壓旅遊亞伯達（Travel Alberta），迫使其取消對神韻活動的贊助。
2010年，一名與中國領館有聯繫的人士曾警告溫尼伯一名商人，不要資助神韻節目冊。
同年，神韻在加拿大巡演期間，一輛載運演職人員的巴士輪胎遭人蓄意割破，如果在高速公路上爆胎，後果可能極為嚴重。
近年來，神韻在密西沙加、基奇納、蒙特婁和溫哥華等地的演出，更接連遭遇炸彈威脅和槍擊恐嚇，目前仍由皇家騎警調查之中。
中國新任大使上任後，NAC成為優先接觸對象
文件顯示，中國駐加拿大大使館最早於2023年2月開始主動接觸NAC。
當時，一名中國使館文化官員向NAC通訊主管Annabelle Cloutier發送郵件。
郵件內容相當直接：
疫情限制已經解除，中方希望恢復與NAC的合作，並「將中國劇團和中國演出重新帶回NAC」。
這封郵件隨即被轉發給NAC行政總裁Christopher Deacon以及管理層。
換句話說，從一開始，中國使館的目的就十分明確——爭取讓中國官方認可的演出團體重新進入加拿大國家藝術中心。
到了2024年，中國新任駐加拿大大使王鏑抵達渥太華。
根據中國使館資料，王鏑於2024年5月抵達加拿大，7月正式履新。
僅僅六週後，他便與NAC行政總裁Christopher Deacon會面。
文件顯示，2024年7月12日，Deacon在轉發使館來信時寫下一句耐人尋味的話：
「收到的建議是，我應該與這位大使會面。」
（The advice received is that I should meet the Ambassador.）
問題在於，文件並未說明這項「建議」來自何人。
可能只是正常的外交禮儀建議。
也可能來自政府或其他機構。
但對一家強調完全獨立決策的聯邦文化機構而言，這樣的措辭難免令人好奇。
更值得注意的是，同一批文件顯示，中國使館不僅邀請NAC高層參加中國國慶招待會，還曾邀請他們出席中國人民解放軍建軍97周年慶祝活動。
邀請函上明確寫著：
活動由中國駐加拿大大使王鏑及國防武官李堯大校共同主辦。
這已不再只是單純的文化交流活動，而是中國黨國體系的重要政治場合。
王鏑訪問NAC：從文化交流到私人晚宴
2024年8月21日，王鏑正式到訪加拿大國家藝術中心。
從公開文件來看，這並非一次普通的禮節性拜會。
根據郵件紀錄，NAC特別為大使車輛預留停車位，Christopher Deacon親自陪同王鏑參觀國家藝術中心約30分鐘，之後再返回辦公室舉行閉門會談。
更值得注意的是，中國使館曾要求允許拍照及在社交媒體發布相關內容。
2024年8月15日，Deacon的助理回覆表示：
「Christopher不介意拍照和發布相關內容。」
幾天後，中國駐加拿大大使館便在官網刊登了會面紀錄。
根據使館發布的新聞稿，王鏑表示希望進一步推動中加文化交流與合作，而NAC總裁Christopher Deacon則被引述表示，希望與中方「加強文化藝術領域的交流與合作」。
當然，中國官方新聞稿並非完全中立，其內容未必逐字反映當事人的原話。
但值得注意的是，NAC從未公開否認或澄清使館對此次會面的描述。
換句話說，加拿大國家藝術中心的行政總裁，確實允許中國政府利用這次會面進行公開宣傳，並被塑造成支持深化中加文化合作的合作夥伴。
大使官邸晚宴
如果說8月的會面仍可被視為正式公務往來，那麼接下來發生的事情則更具私人性質。
2024年8月26日，中國駐加拿大大使館禮賓官向Christopher Deacon發出邀請，邀請他出席於大使官邸舉辦的私人晚宴。
邀請函中特別提到：
「Deacon先生的家人、朋友及同事也非常歡迎參加。」
最終，晚宴定於2024年10月15日舉行。
除了Deacon本人之外，NAC常務董事Nelson McDougall及其妻子也受邀參加。
根據渥太華法輪大法協會後來提交的資料，Deacon與McDougall最終接受邀請並出席晚宴。
這一點之所以值得關注，不是因為加拿大文化機構主管不能參加外交場合，而是因為這種形式的接觸已經超越公開活動或正式會議。
它代表的是一種更私人、更具人際關係色彩的互動。
對於任何試圖建立影響力的外國政府而言，這類私人關係往往比正式會談更具價值。
宣傳電影與聖誕禮物
雙方關係並未止於此。
2024年11月，中國使館邀請Deacon以貴賓身份出席「中國電影節」開幕活動。
活動主打紀錄片《文明之軸：北京中軸線》。
從邀請函列出的主辦單位來看，該活動並非單純的文化放映。
參與單位包括：
中國國家文物局
中國外文局
北京市委宣傳部
中央廣播電視總台（CCTV）
這些機構都屬於中國官方宣傳體系的重要組成部分。
換句話說，這不只是藝術活動，而是帶有明顯官方宣傳背景的文化外交項目。
同年12月，中國使館又向Deacon送出聖誕賀卡及禮物。
而就在幾個月前，使館人員才曾表示「不會有任何禮品交換」。
雖然文件沒有說明禮物內容，但事實上，使館確實向NAC最高主管送出了禮品。
就在此時，NAC開始討論取消神韻
2025年1月，NAC內部正式開始討論是否終止與神韻的合作。
執行製作人Heather Gibson向行政總裁Christopher Deacon建議，不再安排神韻於2026年演出。
她列舉了多項理由，包括：
合約執行問題；
票務管理爭議；
關於神韻的外部指控；
過去合作中的摩擦。
但CBC取得的內部郵件顯示，Gibson本人認為這不僅僅是一項普通行政決定。
她曾提醒Deacon：
如果取消神韻，媒體報導、抗議活動、電話請願以及要求與CEO見面的壓力都將接踵而至。
她甚至提到，過去關於神韻的決定曾被CEO推翻，因此她不希望由自己單獨承擔政治後果。
這說明NAC內部早已意識到，神韻問題具有高度政治敏感性。
中國使館的新要求
而就在NAC內部準備整理對神韻的不滿意見時，中國使館又再次出現。
2025年4月30日，使館致函Christopher Deacon與Nelson McDougall。
信中表示，新任文化參贊希望拜訪NAC管理層。
同行者還包括加拿大中國文化發展協會負責人。
而此次會面的目的被寫得非常清楚：
討論未來幾年將中國藝術團體帶到NAC演出的可能性。
更值得注意的是，使館在郵件中特別寫道：
「在您任職期間，我們共同推動了一系列兩國之間的交流與互訪項目。」
（During your tenure, we together have initiated a series of exchange and mutual visit programs between our two countries.）
這句話的重要性在於，它表明中國使館自己也認為，過去兩年多來與NAC之間存在一項持續推進的合作關係。
而這項合作最核心的目標之一，就是將中國官方認可的演出團體帶上NAC舞台。
面對這項請求，Deacon並未拒絕。
他的回覆是：
「或許我們可以等我結束巡演之後再安排？」
（Could we perhaps push this to after the tour?）
這意味著雙方的接觸仍在持續進行。
兩條時間線的重疊
如果把所有事件按照時間順序排列，情況就變得更加清晰：
2023年2月，中國使館首次提出希望恢復中國演出進入NAC。
2024年6月，新任大使王鏑要求拜訪NAC。
2024年7月，Deacon表示收到建議應與大使會面。
2024年8月，王鏑訪問NAC並獲得公開宣傳。
2024年10月，NAC兩名高層攜配偶赴大使官邸晚宴。
2024年11月至12月，使館邀請NAC高層參加官方電影節並贈送禮物。
2025年1月，NAC開始討論取消神韻。
2025年4月，中國使館再次要求討論引進中國演出團體。
2025年4月28日，NAC開始蒐集對神韻不利的正式意見。
2025年7月29日，NAC宣布不再主辦神韻2026年演出。
從法律角度而言，這些文件並沒有證明北京直接下令取消神韻。
但它們清楚顯示，在同一家機構內部，兩條進程同步發展：
一方面，中國使館持續與NAC高層建立關係，並推動中國官方認可的演出團體進入NAC。
另一方面，NAC則一步步朝著取消神韻演出的方向前進。
文件無法證明兩者存在直接因果關係。
但它們確實證明，這兩條路線在同一時間、同一機構內並行存在。
董事會與中國網絡：巧合，還是值得警惕的風險？
在資訊公開文件曝光後，另一個值得關注的問題浮現出來：
如果中國使館長期經營與NAC高層的關係，那麼NAC本身的治理結構是否也存在容易受到影響的環境？
作者檢視了NAC董事會成員的公開背景後發現，部分董事與加拿大對華商業圈存在不同程度的聯繫。
需要強調的是，這些聯繫本身並不代表任何不當行為，更不代表相關人士曾受到中國政府影響。但當一個機構正面臨涉及中國政府利益的敏感決策時，這些背景關係仍值得公開討論。
董事會主席 Guy Pratte
NAC董事會主席Guy Pratte是加拿大大型律師事務所BLG（Borden Ladner Gervais）的資深律師。
BLG長期是加拿大最活躍的中國業務律所之一。
公開資料顯示，該律所設有中國業務團隊，在北京設有代表處，並曾協助中國企業在加拿大投資能源、礦業及其他敏感產業。
BLG多位高級合夥人過去曾參與加中貿易理事會（Canada China Business Council）相關活動。
2022年，加中貿易理事會年度會議甚至由BLG卡加利辦公室主辦，主題正是中共二十大之後的中國發展方向。
這些事實並不意味著Pratte本人受到中國影響，但它顯示其所在機構與中國市場存在深厚聯繫。
副主席 Derral Moriyama
董事會副主席Derral Moriyama曾在蒙特利爾銀行（BMO）工作31年。
而這31年，恰好也是BMO大舉進軍中國市場的時期。
期間，BMO成為：
第一家獲准進入中國市場的加拿大銀行；
中國銀行香港上市的重要承銷商；
在上海設立分行；
成立中國全資子公司；
投資中國國有糧食巨頭中糧集團（COFCO）旗下金融機構。
同樣地，這並不意味Moriyama本人曾參與相關決策，但這種背景反映出其職業生涯與加拿大企業對華擴張高度重疊。
Heather Bala Edwards
另一位董事Heather Bala Edwards本人並無明顯中國背景。
然而，她的丈夫是加拿大自然資源公司（Canadian Natural Resources Limited）主席Murray Edwards。
該公司曾與中國石化（Sinopec）旗下企業合作開發亞伯達油砂項目。
這項合作曾引發加拿大社會廣泛爭議，包括中國勞工使用問題以及工地安全事故等。
作者特別指出，這並不涉及Heather Edwards本人的行為，但客觀上也構成了董事會另一條與中國國有企業產生交集的路徑。
渥太華市長 Mark Sutcliffe
作為當然董事（ex officio member），渥太華市長Mark Sutcliffe同樣出現在這個網絡中。
2025年2月，王鏑曾專程拜會Sutcliffe。
根據中國官方發布的會後新聞稿，市長對中國使館在當地社區發揮的作用表示肯定，並願意推動更多交流合作。
作者承認，市長與外國外交官會面本身十分正常。
但當中國使館同時與NAC高層、董事會相關人士以及地方政府維持接觸時，這種影響力網絡便形成了一個值得觀察的整體。
文件沒有證明什麼？又證明了什麼？
公平起見，必須清楚說明這批文件的局限性。
文件並沒有顯示：
北京下令NAC取消神韻；
中國使館直接要求NAC停止與神韻合作；
NAC官員曾表示決策受到中國壓力；
中國政府與神韻事件之間存在明確指揮鏈。
然而，這些文件確實證明了四件事情。
第一，雙方關係長期且持續
從2023年2月至2025年4月，中國使館與NAC高層保持著穩定而頻繁的接觸。
而且正如使館自己所形容的那樣：
這是一系列持續進行的「交流與互訪項目」。
這不是偶然的一兩次見面。
第二，中國使館的目標始終十分明確
從第一封郵件開始，中方就反覆表達同一個目標：
讓中國官方認可的劇團和演出重新進入NAC。
2025年的郵件甚至直接提出，希望討論未來幾年把中國藝術團體帶進NAC演出的安排。
換句話說，中國使館並非單純維持外交關係，而是有具體的文化輸出目標。
第三，NAC高層高度參與其中
大使獲得CEO親自陪同參觀；
高層出席大使官邸晚宴；
接受使館贈禮；
參與中國官方色彩濃厚的文化活動；
允許中國使館公開宣傳雙方關係。
這些都發生在機構最高層級。
第四，這段關係並不對等
在全部公開文件中，可以看到：
主動提出會面的是中國使館；
發出邀請的是中國使館；
安排晚宴的是中國使館；
送禮的是中國使館；
推動文化合作的是中國使館。
而NAC更多扮演接受邀請和配合安排的一方。
因此，儘管雙方郵件中反覆使用「交流」一詞，但實際互動並不完全符合平等互惠的概念。
最核心的問題
影響力從來不一定透過命令實現。
在現代民主社會中，更常見的方式是：
透過人際網絡；
透過持續接觸；
透過建立信任；
透過塑造風險認知；
透過讓決策者逐漸相信某些爭議「不值得招惹」。
在這種情況下，一個機構未必需要收到任何指令，也可能最終做出符合某個外國政府利益的決定。
因此，真正的核心問題是：當一家聯邦文化機構在兩年半時間裡持續接待中國大使、參加其私人晚宴、接受其禮物、討論引進中國官方演出團體，而中國政府又恰恰是全球最積極打壓神韻的力量之一時，公眾是否仍然能夠毫無保留地相信，這項決定完全是在真空中作出的？
NAC的答案是肯定的，但從其自身公開的文件來看，這種談不上解釋的解釋，恐怕已難以令人完全信服。
如果一家位於加拿大首都、由聯邦政府資助的國家文化機構，最終在外國政府長期施加影響與遊說的背景下，作出排除特定藝術團體的決定，那麼這不僅是一場關於演出安排的爭議。它更涉及加拿大國家主權、文化自主，以及公民享有的表達自由與結社自由等核心價值。
無論人們對神韻演出本身抱持何種看法，任何外國政府都不應擁有決定誰能夠在加拿大舞台上演出的權力。如果這條界線被突破，受到損害的將不只是某一個藝術團體，而是加拿大作為自由民主國家的根本原則。