President Xi’s freedom-stomping thugs are targeting speech in NYC

Not even tiny indie film festivals are safe from the long-reaching arm of the Chinese Communist Party.

On Monday, The New York Times reported that Chinese director Zhu Rikun had to cancel the NYC-based IndieChina Film Festival after the CCP harassed participants and their families (particularly members in China) over the inclusion of films that Beijing had never approved.

The director himself was willing to take some heat over the festival, but when any other filmmakers, panel moderators and a volunteer pulled out, and a few admitted they or their families had been bullied by Chinese police, Zhu opted to shutter the event.

The jackboots won: There will be no unapproved speech about China on President Xi Jinping’s watch — not even on American soil.

It’s no surprise that Xi’s thought police moved against art the CCP hadn’t OK’d — Chinese authorities strong-armed Zhu’s previous project, the Beijing Independent Film Festival, into nonexistence in 2014.

But it’s beyond chilling that the CCP could so effectively squash speech in New York City, thuggishly controlling what US-based independent thinkers can say and watch.

The small festival was mostly funded by Zhu; he expected perhaps 70 people at each screening.

Alarm bells should be sounding from City Hall to Capitol Hill and the White House: Xi’s bullyboys are increasingly bold about meddling in American business.

In August, the Times broke a story about a ring of Chinese agents working through a network of at least 53 organizations fronting as “hometown associations” to sabotage the careers of politicians in New York who met with Taiwanese leaders or criticized the CCP.

Back in 2023, two Chinese foreign agents were arrested for running a “secret police station” in Manhattan to help the CPP track down and target dissidents living in the United States.

Chinese spies have been caught in the offices of Gov. Kathy Hochul, in pro-democracy activist circles and in a New Jersey sushi joint.

Suspected CCP agents have also targeted American students for grooming into spies.

The Red Dragon, it seems, has eyes and ears everywhere and demands complete and total obedience — not even shoestring-budget film festivals that will draw a few hundred attendees at most are spared.

The Trump administration should see XI’s audacious interference in American life for what it is: A sign that the CCP neither fears the US government nor respects its authority over what happens on its own shores.

Beijing must face consequences for stepping on American toes and American values, or the CCP’s freedom-stomping influence will continue to spread.