Anastasia Lin

Anastasia Lin

Lin speaks at the National Press Club
Born (1990-01-01) January 1, 1990
Hunan, China
Residence Toronto
Citizenship Canadian
Alma mater University of Toronto
Occupation Actress, model, human rights activist
Awards Miss World Canada 2015
Website anastasialin.com
Lin Yefan
Chinese 林耶凡

Anastasia Lin, (born January 1, 1990) is a Chinese-Canadian actress, model, beauty pageant titleholder and human rights advocate. Lin won the Miss World Canada title in 2015 and was to represent Canada at Miss World 2015 pageant to be held in China but was refused a visa by Chinese authorities after being declared "persona non grata." The news of her rejection from the pageant, and her subsequent attempt to enter China through Hong Kong, caused global media attention for several weeks, leading to a front page article in The New York Times and op-eds and editorials in major newspapers.[1] Most of the coverage praised what it said was Lin's bravery for "resistance to tyranny" using the novel form of a beauty pageant, and she was hailed as "an outspoken advocate for freedom of conscience."[2]

Analysts widely suspected the reason for refusal of entry to be due to her advocacy of human rights in China and choice of film roles, and her rejection from the pageant caused widespread reflection on the ability of authoritarian China to exert its influence far beyond its own borders.[3]

Lin is a graduate of University of Toronto (with Bachelor of Arts in theater and minor in history and political science)[4] and has based her career acting in films that deal with human rights issues in her country of birth.[5] In January 2016, she was listed as one of the top "25 under 25" by MTV Fora.[6]

Early life and education

Lin was born in Hunan, China and moved to Canada at age 13 with her mother. Her father runs a medical supply company in China, and her mother was a former university professor.[4] Lin went to high school in Vancouver before moving to Toronto.[7]

Lin grew up in Changsha, Hunan, near the 1,000-year-old Yuelu Academy. Lin's mother, at the time an economics professor at Hunan University, would take her there to practice calligraphy.[8]

Careers

Acting

Since beginning acting at the age of 7, Lin has appeared in over 20 films and television productions, and most prominently played lead actress in several Toronto-based films about human rights themes in China.

Lin's first film saw her perform as a student killed in a poorly-built school that collapsed during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. In 2011 she played an unrequited lover in Beyond Destiny. The latter won the Golden Palm Award at the Mexico International Film Festival and the Award of Merit at the Indie Fest in California.[9] In 2014 she played a news reporter from China Central Television in the satirical series Big Shorts. The same year she starred in Red Lotus, a Swedish production that is based on the persecution of Falun Gong. Her latest film, The Bleeding Edge, from the creators of the Peabody Award-winning film Human Harvest, is a thriller based on real-life events where she plays a Falun Gong practitioner. The film is set to be released in 2016.[10]

Filmology

Year Title Role Notes
2011 Destined Qianqian Cui
2011 Beyond Destiny Lily
2012 Piano Teacher Zi Xi
2014 Red Lotus Lian
2016 The Bleeding Edge Jing

Television

Year Title RoleNotes
2014 Big Shorts Dandan Lv Season 1[11]

Miss World pageants

Lin has participated in beauty pageants for a number of years, winning the Miss World Canada in 2015. In 2013 in the same competition she received second runner up. When Lin competed for the first Miss World Canada title in 2013, she dedicated her piano composition to “those who lost their life for their faith and the millions of people still fighting for their faith today.”[12] Her 2015 bid included a video wishing to extent "light and courage to those who still find themselves in the dark.”[13]

Human rights advocacy

Lin, a Falun Gong practitioner, is known for her public position against human rights abuses in China, particularly against practitioners of Falun Gong. In 2012, she was one of eleven stakeholders selected to meet Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird upon the establishment of Canada's Office of Religious Freedom. Previously, Lin was one of ten youth leaders who met Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Bob Dechert to consult on the same issue.[14] Canadian television reports attributed her victory in the 2015 Miss World Pageant in part to her passion for human rights.

Due to her activism, Chinese state security agents visited and threatened her father in China, attempting to have him sever all contact with her. "Shortly after my victory, my father started receiving threats from Chinese security agents complaining about my human rights advocacy", Lin wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post, "No doubt fearing for his livelihood and business, my father asked me to stop advocating for human rights. He told me that if I did not stop, we would have to go our separate ways".[15]

In July 2015 Lin was invited to testify before U.S. Congress, addressing the topic of Religion With "Chinese Characteristics": Persecution and Control in Xi Jinping's China. Speaking before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Lin said that the intimidation and threats her father received are common. "Good people like my father, a law-abiding and contributing citizen, an honest businessman now too afraid to talk to his daughter, who once supported her in everything she did... now must leave her to face the world alone... Mr. Chairman, I hope you understand this is a common experience for so many American and Canadian citizens. Those Chinese who dare to speak their minds do so knowing that those still within the regime's reach in China could pay the price for it."[16]

In subsequent interviews with media, Lin has advocated for freedom of expression in China.[17] She was a speaker at the 2016 Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy.[18]

Rejection from Miss World 2015

In late November, after having not received the invitation letter from the Chinese government to support her visa request for the Miss World 2015, Lin assumed that she had been effectively denied the right to compete in the pageant. She and others presumed the reason to be because of her outspokenness on Chinese human rights abuses.[19]

That she had been banned was confirmed, however, after she was labeled persona non grata by Chinese embassy staff in Ottawa while she was en route to Hong Kong. Lin had originally hoped to benefit from Hainan province's special visa policy for Canadian nationals, and sought to transit in to Sanya from Hong Kong on a Cathay Pacific flight from Canada. On November 26, 2015, staff at the Hong Kong airport told Lin that she would not be granted a landing visa in Sanya, confirming that she had been denied entry to China.[20] Chinese immigration officials gave no reason for their refusal.[21] In an email to the Globe and Mail referring to the status of Lin, the Chinese embassy in Canada declared that "China does not allow any persona non grata to come to China".[22]

Response

According to Quartz, "In the roughly 24 hours since Lin was refused entry, media outlets the world over have sought out Lin to discuss her viewpoints on China’s abuse of its citizens’ freedoms and rights." It noted that Google News showed 14,700 searches for her name.[23]

Lin's being rejected from the pageant led to global media attention and commentary. The Washington Post editorialized that "we... think the regime feels genuinely threatened by anyone who doesn’t toe its line. President Xi Jinping and his Politburo say they want market-oriented reform, but simultaneously they are tightening the screws on civil society, Internet debate, the media, independent churches or anything else that might challenge the Communist Party." It added that this approach, in the long run, "can only hurt China itself, as the regime becomes more and more brittle, isolated and afraid."[3]

Minxin Pei said that the way that the PRC government was treating Anastasia Lin was an example of its realism as “they know that people will hold their noses and continue to kowtow to them because they have a big checkbook” and "part of a larger strategy for deterring would-be critics: the proverbial slaughter of the chicken that is killed to frighten all those monkeys.”[1]

The Wall Street Journal's David Feith called the affair "a window into Beijing's repression and paranoia." He called the Chinese government's response to Lin "official thuggery," and added that this, as well as "Ms. Lin’s bravery and pain, are now the legacies of an otherwise forgettable pageant meant to convey cosmopolitan glamour."[24]

Global Times, a nationalistic newspaper run by the People's Daily in China, said that Lin had been "misguided by her values," and "lacks reasonable understanding of the country where she was born."[25] This was rebutted by a Globe and Mail editorial "China sees a beauty queen and runs away," in which the authors argued that "It is eminently unfair that Ms. Lin can’t compete in her chosen vocation because of her beliefs, but she should take solace in knowing that the mere threat of her presence was enough to make a world power shiver in fear."[26]

Jeff Jacoby, writing in The Boston Globe, declared: "Totalitarian regimes scruple at nothing — not the political manipulation of international beauty contests, not the criminalizing of quiet meditation, not even the blackmail of a father to break his daughter’s spirit. The courage to resist such regimes isn’t easy to come by. Canada’s beauty queen has it in such gallant measure that China fears to let her speak from a Chinese stage. Some other young woman may be crowned Miss World, but it is Anastasia Lin who has been ennobled."[2]

References

  1. 1 2 Jacobs, Andrew (2015-11-26). "China Bars Anastasia Lin, Miss World Canada (and Rights Advocate)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-01-29.
  2. 1 2 "The beauty queen that China is determined to stifle - The Boston Globe". BostonGlobe.com. Retrieved 2016-02-01.
  3. 1 2 Board, Editorial (2015-11-30). "What the saga of Miss World Canada reveals about China’s brittle regime". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2016-01-29.
  4. 1 2 "'I'm really scared': Miss World Canada says father threatened in China". CTV News. May 25, 2015.
  5. ↑ "Newly Crowned Miss World Canada Says Father Threatened in China". Epoch Times. May 21, 2015.
  6. ↑ "LEADING LADIES: FORA’s 25 Under 25". MTV Fora. Retrieved 2016-01-23.
  7. ↑ "Canada's Miss World candidate says her family was threatened in China". The Globe and Mail. May 25, 2015.
  8. ↑ "Why Miss World Canada Anastasia Lin Refuses to Be Intimidated by China". The Epoch Times. Retrieved 2015-12-02.
  9. ↑ "A Will Paves a Way". Retrieved 2015-06-09.
  10. ↑ "Anastasia Lin, Miss World Canada, denied entry to China for pageant". 26 November 2015. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  11. ↑ "BigShortsTV". bigshorts.tv. Retrieved 2015-11-27.
  12. ↑ Winsa, Patty (2015-11-15). "Miss World Canada 2015 is being denied entry to China for the international final. Why does the state care about her?". The Toronto Star. ISSN 0319-0781. Retrieved 2016-02-01.
  13. ↑ Anastasia Lin (2015-02-21), Anastasia Lin - Miss World Canada 2015 Delegate, retrieved 2016-02-01
  14. ↑ "Newly Crowned Miss World Canada Says Father Threatened in China". Retrieved 2015-06-09.
  15. ↑ Lin, Anastasia (2015-06-26). "I won Miss World Canada. But my work puts my father at risk in China.". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2015-09-04.
  16. ↑ "Hearings | Congressional-Executive Commission on China". www.cecc.gov. Retrieved 2015-09-04.
  17. ↑ Kirk, Donald (20 December 2015). "Anastasia Lin: Banned Miss World beauty queen speaks out on China's human rights record". The Independent. The Independent.
  18. ↑ "Jailed Venezuelan Opposition Leaders Antonio Ledezma & Leopoldo Lopez Win 2016 Courage Award from 25 NGOs at Geneva Summit Held at UN". GenevaSummit.org.
  19. ↑ Olivia Lace-Evans (20 November 2015). "Miss Canada World denied entry to pageant in China". BBC News. Retrieved 21 November 2015.
  20. ↑ "Miss Canada Anastasia Lin denied Chinese visa for Miss World pageant". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  21. ↑ http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1883886/miss-world-canada-denied-china-entry-hong-kong-airport
  22. ↑ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/miss-world-canada-deemed-unwelcome-by-china-ending-contest-hopes/article27476426/
  23. ↑ Macauley, Richard. "China barred an activist from a world beauty contest—and put her right in the spotlight". Quartz. Retrieved 2016-01-29.
  24. ↑ "Wall Street Journal: China’s ‘Soft Power’ Problem - China Aid". www.chinaaid.org. Retrieved 2016-01-29.
  25. ↑ "Canadian Miss World contestant misguided by her values - Global Times". www.globaltimes.cn. Retrieved 2016-01-29.
  26. ↑ "China sees a beauty queen and runs away". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2016-01-29.

External links

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