Australian Prime Minister Evacuated From Residence After Chinese Bomb Threats Over Shen Yun Performance

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was evacuated from his residence in Canberra on Feb. 24, following a bomb threat made in Chinese against him and other high-ranking officials.The threat came just days before a scheduled performance by New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts, a classical Chinese dance and music company that has been a target of Beijing for years.Ahead of the company’s Australian tour, due to start on Feb. 25, emails in Chinese sent to local presenters demanded that they cancel the shows or else face dire consequences. One email, obtained by The Epoch Times, falsely claimed that explosives had been placed around the prime minister’s residence and that they would be detonated should Shen Yun’s performances proceed. The prime minister was taken to another location for several hours while law enforcement conducted a search at The Lodge in Canberra. The Australian Federal Police on Feb. 24 found “no current threat to community or public safety,” a spokesperson told The Epoch Times.Threats Targeting Shen YunLocal Australian presenters for Shen Yun said they received a Chinese-language email on Feb. 10 with the message, “If Shen Yun’s performance goes ahead, something will happen to Anthony Albanese.”The email threatened the “personal safety of Anthony Albanese and all other Australian high officials.”“It doesn’t matter as long as you can afford the cost. I won’t try to talk you out of it anymore. Just don’t regret it later,” it read.The first email, obtained by The Epoch Times, sent to Shen Yun organisers in Australia threatening Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Feb. 10, 2026. Screenshot/The Epoch TimesA second email, sent on Feb. 22, was titled “Suggestion to stop Shen Yun.”The email stated in Chinese: “Large quantities of nitroglycerin explosives have been placed around the Australian prime minister’s Lodge, located on Adelaide Avenue in the Deakin area of Canberra, Australia.“If you insist on proceeding with the performance, then the prime minister’s Lodge will be blown into ruins and blood will flow like a river.”The second email, obtained by The Epoch Times, sent to Shen Yun organisers in Australia threatening Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Feb. 22, 2026. Screenshot/The Epoch TimesThe sender of the second email claimed to be Chen Pokong, a U.S.-based columnist, political commentator, and YouTuber who played a key role in the pro-democracy movement in China during 1989, for which he was imprisoned and subsequently exiled to the United States. However, the CCP has a history of impersonating individuals, including foreign officials and dissidents, when making these types of threats.The Epoch Times has contacted Chen for a response.Weeks earlier, similarly worded threats were issued against the leaders of the UK, South Korea, and Denmark to scare audiences and venue managers, with no actual incidents reported.The performing arts company, which seeks to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization, was founded by artists fleeing the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) persecution of Falun Gong. The spiritual discipline, also known as Falun Dafa, features meditative exercises and teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.Shen Yun Performing Arts’ curtain call at the Wycombe Swan Theatre in England on Feb. 21, 2026. Roger LuoThe CCP began a nationwide persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in 1999. Under the persecution, millions have been arbitrarily detained, tortured, subjected to forced labor, and even killed for their organs to fuel the regime’s lucrative transplantation industry. Shen Yun’s performances feature dance pieces that tell the stories of practitioners who’ve faced persecution in China. The Epoch Times is a media sponsor of Shen Yun.Over the past two years, Shen Yun has been subjected to a transnational suppression campaign involving bomb threats, email threats, and media campaigns.The latest email messages follow a Jan. 2 statement by the Chinese consulates in Sydney and Melbourne urging Australians not to watch Shen Yun.The consulates echoed CCP propaganda in calling on “friends from all sectors” to remain “vigilant” and to “stay away from the ‘Shen Yun’ performance.”That message followed two bomb threats in November 2025 targeting a Sydney screening of “State Organs,” a documentary that exposes the CCP’s organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China.Lucy Zhao, president of the Falun Dafa Association of Australia, condemned the latest threats.“This is a hate crime and terrorist threats aiming to silence dissidents and stop Shen Yun,” she said in a statement. She said the association will only work harder to “ensure that Shen Yun’s shows run safely and successfully in Australia” and to hold activities to expose the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong.“I believe our government will not allow such CCP foreign interference to continue and will investigate further and take action to prevent it.”‘Unacceptable’In response to the latest emails, One Nation federal MP Barnaby Joyce said it was “totally unacceptable in Australia to intimidate someone who is practicing their religion, in a form that is no threat to Australian culture, and does not intrude on the rights of others.”Former Australian Deputy Prime Minister and now-One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce speaks during the “Put Australia First” rally in Sydney, Australia, on Dec. 21, 2025. George Chan/ AFP via Getty Images“We live in an Australian culture. Australian culture has guardrails as to how you act. … It supports freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of movement, it believes in the centrality of the family … and patriotism to Australia,” he told The Epoch Times.The Epoch Times has contacted both the Prime Minister’s Office and Leader of the Opposition Angus Taylor for comment.Taylor did later write on X: “Pleased to hear that the Prime Minister is safe and well after being evacuated from his residence in Canberra.“Threats against any parliamentarian are utterly abhorrent, especially in a country built on expressing our differences through debate.”Former Australian Federal Police agent Paul Johnstone said the latest emails could have come from overseas.“The use of the word ‘Australia’ in this context appears unusually formal and somewhat inconsistent with typical Australian correspondence, where such wording would rarely be used. This linguistic irregularity may warrant closer examination as a potential indicator of external authorship,” he told The Epoch Times.Johnstone, who has trained police and security personnel across Asia, said the threatening nature of the message suggested alignment with propaganda channels or elements linked to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) or Ministry of State Security (MSS).“Beijing does not regard Shen Yun as merely a cultural organisation, but as a platform that highlights human rights abuses and challenges the authority of the Chinese regime,” he said.“Chinese diplomatic missions overseas, including in Australia, have reportedly sought to discourage or prevent Shen Yun performances through formal correspondence, engagement with venues and sponsors, and behind-the-scenes pressure on officials.”Johnstone said that these efforts are part of a broader strategy to “shape global narratives and protect China’s international image, which is progressively eroding especially amid rising regional tensions, including maritime confrontations with the Philippines, economic friction with Japan, and internal political upheavals with purges within the PLA and government.”The incident is the latest in an ongoing campaign targeting Falun Gong practitioners and companies started by them around the world, including Shen Yun.The Falun Dafa Information Center, which has been tracking the campaign, has counted more than 130 death and bomb threats made against Shen Yun since March 2024. Dozens more violent threats have targeted U.S. officials and institutions that support Falun Gong, according to the center.Most of the emails are in Chinese, with the sender claiming, falsely, that they would stage acts of violence should the performances go ahead. In February 2025, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, now named the Trump Kennedy Center, was evacuated due to a bomb threat targeting Shen Yun.Other threats have directly targeted Shen Yun’s performers, their families, and their training facilities in New York.Shen Yun’s 2026 Australian tour will perform in the Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide from Feb. 25 to March 29.The show has been widely welcomed in Australian cities for many years, earning praise from figures such as billionaire Imelda Roche.Eva Fu contributed to this report.