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In December 2018, Lin signed on to be a Macdonald-Laurier Institute Ambassador for Canada-China Policy.

Lin is a graduate of University of Toronto (with Bachelor of Arts in theatre and minor in history and political science) and has based her career acting in films that deal with human rights issues in her country of birth. In January 2016, she was listed as one of the "Top 25 Under 25" by MTV Fora. In June 2016 she won the Leo Award for best lead performance by a female for her role in the film The Bleeding Edge.

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. 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 was released on April 11, 2016.

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

Apart from her acting and human rights advocacy, Lin went on to become a celebrity in her own right. On January 2016, she was listed as one of the top "25 under 25" by MTV Fora, a list that included Malala, Selena Gomez, and Kylie Jenner. Flare magazine featured her as a "Top 60 under 30," in the activist category, and Marie Claire declared her "The Badass Beauty Queen" in an interview about her work, after her appearance at an Oxford University debate. "Throughout my journey I have encountered a lot of people who look at me like 'what can she possibly offer to this debate?'" Lin said in the Marie Claire interview. "But real power comes when you break through that stereotype and surprise people who have underestimated you. I do all my own research and meet with victims of whatever I am speaking about."

Lin participated in the Oslo Freedom Forum in May 2016, giving a speech about Falun Gong, organ harvesting, and freedom of belief. Jay Nordlinger of National Review wrote that she was "an extraordinary person" and produced a podcast interview with her.

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. 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." Lin represented Canada at Miss World 2016 in Washington, District of Columbia.

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." Her 2015 bid included a video wishing to extend "light and courage to those who still find themselves in the dark."

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.

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. Chinese immigration officials gave no reason for their refusal. 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".

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."

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."

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. Canadian television reports attributed her victory in the 2015 Miss World Pageant in part to her passion for human rights.

Anastasia Lin (born January 1, 1990) is a Chinese-Canadian actress, model, beauty pageant titleholder and human rights advocate.