Representatives Chris Smith (R-NJ) and John Moolenaar (R-MI) today released a letter today asking the Kennedy Center about upcoming performances of the National Ballet of China (NBC).  The Representatives detailed the NBC’s connections to the Chinese Communist Party and the fact that “art is a political instrument in the People’s Republic China [and] used for the purpose of disseminating propaganda abroad.”   The signed letter to the Kennedy Center is attached.

   The Representatives said that their questions stemmed from the fact that the Kennedy Center is “a public building…and we believe there is a responsibility to be accountable to the U.S. taxpayers for what goes on in their building….Subsidizing CCP propaganda and implicitly endorsing Xi Jinping’s war on artists and intellectuals…is not responsible stewardship in our opinion.”  

    The Representatives included a list of artists detained in the People’s Republic of China and others who have faced intimidation and harassment in the United States and other countries.

   Representative Smith is the Chair of the Subcommittee on Africa in the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. Representative Moolenaar is the Chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. 

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