China December 21, 2019
China detaining millions of Uyghurs? Serious problems with claims by
US-backed NGO and far-right researcher 'led by God' against Beijing
Claims that China has detained millions of Uyghur Muslims are based largely
on two studies. A closer look at these papers reveals US government backing,
absurdly shoddy methodologies, and a rapture-ready evangelical researcher
named Adrian Zenz.
By Ajit Singh and Max Blumenthal
The US House of Representatives passed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act on
December 3, legislation which calls for the Donald Trump administration to
impose sanctions against China over allegations that Beijing has detained
millions of Muslim-majority Uyghurs in the western region of Xinjiang.
To drum up support for the sanctions bill, Western governments and media
outlets have portrayed the People's Republic as a human rights violator on
par with Nazi Germany. Republican Rep. Chris Smith, for instance, denounced
the Chinese government for what he called the "mass internment of millions
on a scale not seen since the Holocaust," in "modern-day concentration
camps."
The claim that China has detained millions of ethnic Uyghurs in its Xinjiang
region is repeated with increasing frequency, but little scrutiny is ever
applied. Yet a closer look at the figure and how it was obtained reveals a
serious deficiency in data.
While this extraordinary claim is treated as unassailable in the West, it
is, in fact, based on two highly dubious "studies."
The first, by the US government-backed Network of Chinese Human Rights
Defenders, formed its estimate by interviewing a grand total of eight
people.
The second study relied on flimsy media reports and speculation. It was
authored by Adrian Zenz, a far-right fundamentalist Christian who opposes
homosexuality and gender equality, supports "scriptural spanking" of
children, and believes he is "led by God" on a "mission" against China.
As Washington ratchets up pressure on China, Zenz has been lifted out of
obscurity and transformed almost overnight into a go-to pundit on Xinjiang.
He has testified before Congress, providing commentary in outlets from the
Wall Street Journal to Democracy Now!, and delivering expert quotes in the
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists' recent "China Cables"
report. His Twitter bio notes that he is "moving across the Atlantic" from
his native Germany.
Before Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal questioned Zenz about his religious
"mission," at a recent event about Xinjiang inside the US Capitol, he had
received almost entirely uncritical promotion from Western media.
The Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, which first popularized the
"millions detained" figure, has also been able to operate without a hint of
media scrutiny.
Washington-backed NGO claims millions detained after interviewing eight
people
The "millions detained" figure was first popularized by a Washington,
DC-based NGO that is backed by the US government, the Network of Chinese
Human Rights Defenders (CHRD).
In a 2018 report submitted to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination - often misrepresented in Western media as a UN-authored
report - CHRD "estimate[d] that roughly one million members of ethnic
Uyghurs have been sent to 're-education' detention camps and roughly two
million have been forced to attend 're-education' programs in Xinjiang."
According to CHRD, this figure was "[b]ased on interviews and limited data."
While CHRD states that it interviewed dozens of ethnic Uyghurs in the course
of its study, their enormous estimate was ultimately based on interviews
with exactly eight Uyghur individuals.
Based on this absurdly small sample of research subjects in an area whose
total population is 20 million, CHRD "extrapolated estimates" that "at least
10% of villagers [.] are being detained in re-education detention camps, and
20% are being forced to attend day/evening re-education camps in the
villages or townships, totaling 30% in both types of camps."
Applying these estimated rates to the entirety of Xinjiang, CHRD arrived at
the figures submitted to the UN claiming that one million ethnic Uyghurs
have been detained in "re-education detention camps" and two million more
have been "forced to attend day/evening re-education sessions".
Thanks to questionable sources like the CHRD, the United States government
has accused China of "arbitrarily detain[ing] 800,000 to possibly more than
two million Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and other Muslims in internment camps
designed to erase religious and ethnic identities."
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2018, State
Department official Scott Busby stated this this "is the U.S. government
assessment, backed by our intelligence community and open source reporting."
The Chinese government has rejected US allegations, and claims that it has
in fact established "vocational education and training centers [.] to
prevent the breeding and spread of terrorism and religious extremism." The
Chinese Foreign Ministry has stated that "there [are] no so-called
're-education camps' in Xinjiang at all. The vocational education and
training centers legally operated in Xinjiang aim to help a small number of
people affected by terrorist and extremist ideologies and equip them with
skills, so that they can be self-reliant and re-integrate into society."
In its mounting pressure campaign against China, the US is not only relying
on CHRD for data; it is directly funding its operations. As Ben Norton and
Ajit Singh previously reported for The Grayzone, CHRD receives significant
financial support from Washington's regime-change arm, the National
Endowment for Democracy (NED).
The NGO has spent years campaigning on behalf of extreme right-wing
opposition figures who celebrate colonialism and call for the
"Westernization" of China.
'Leading expert' on Xinjiang relies on speculation and one questionable
media report
The second key source for claims that China has detained millions of Uyghur
Muslims is Adrian Zenz. He is a senior fellow in China studies at the
far-right Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which was established by
the US government in 1993.
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation is an outgrowth of the National
Captive Nations Committee, a group founded by Ukrainian nationalist Lev
Dobriansky to lobby against any effort for detente with the Soviet Union.
Its co-chairman, Yaroslav Stetsko, was a top leader of the fascist OUN-B
militia that fought alongside Nazi Germany during its occupation of Ukraine
in World War Two. Together, the two helped found the World Anti-Communist
League that was described by journalist Joe Conason as "the organizational
haven for neo-Nazis, fascists, and anti-Semitic extremists from two dozen
countries."
Lev Dobriansky, pictured below with Eisenhower & Reagan, invented Captive
Nations Week in 1959, and got Yaroslav Stetsko his first visa to the United
States in 1958 against the wishes of the CIA & the State Department. Reagan
appointed Dobriansky to be Ambassador to the Bahamas.
pic.twitter.com/NmOvsnvNmg
- Moss Robeson (@mossrobeson__) July 19, 2019
Today, Dobriansky's daughter, Paula, sits on the board of the Victims of
Communism Memorial Foundation. A former Reagan and George HW Bush official
and signatory of the original Project for a New American Century document,
Paula Dobriansky has become a fixture in neoconservative circles on Capitol
Hill.
From its office in Washington, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
agitates for regime change from Venezuela to the periphery of China,
advancing the "double genocide" theory that rewrites the history of the
Holocaust and posits communism as a deadly evil on par with Hitlerian
fascism.
Zenz's politicized research on Xinjiang and Tibet has proven one of this
right-wing group's most effective weapons.
In September of 2018, Zenz wrote an article published in the Central Asian
Survey journal concluding that "Xinjiang's total re-education internment
figure may be estimated at just over one million." (A condensed version of
the article was initially published by the Jamestown Foundation, a
neoconservative think tank founded during the height of the Cold War by
Reagan administration personnel with the support of then-CIA Director
William J. Casey).
Like the CHRD, Zenz arrived at his estimate "over 1 million" in a dubious
manner. He based it on a single report by Istiqlal TV, a Uyghur exile media
organization based in Turkey, which was republished by Newsweek Japan. Far
from an impartial journalistic organization, Istiqlal TV advances the
separatist cause while playing host to an assortment of extremist figures.
One such character who often appears on Istiqlal TV is Abdulkadir Yapuquan,
a reported leader of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a
separatist group that aims to establish an independent homeland in Xinjiang
called East Turkestan.
ETIM has been designated as a terrorist organization with ties to al-Qaeda
by the US, European Union, and UN Security Council's Al-Qaida Sanctions
Committee. The Associated Press has reported that since "2013, thousands of
Uighurs. have traveled to Syria to train with the Uighur militant group
Turkistan Islamic Party and fight alongside al-Qaida," with "several hundred
join[ing] the Islamic State."
The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) has been among the most recalcitrant
forces operating in the Al Qaeda-controlled Idlib province, rejecting all
ceasefire efforts while indoctrinating children into militancy. TIP
leadership has called on foreign Muslims to wage jihad in Syria, publishing
an online recruitment video in 2018 that celebrated the 9/11 attacks as holy
retaliation against a decadent United States awash in homosexuality and sin.
Children of the Turkistan Islamic Party in Idlib, Syria
According to the Los Angeles Times, Yapuquan is "a regular guest on Istiqlal
TV. where his interviews often extended into hours-long emotional tirades
against China."
Turkish journalist Abdullah Bozkurt reported that Istiqlal TV has also
hosted fanatical anti-Semites like Nureddin Yıldız, who in an interview on
the network, "called for armed jihad not only in China's autonomous Xinjiang
region but all over the world and described China as a nation of savages,
worse than the Jews."
#Turkey pres. #Erdogan's family cleric Nureddin Yıldız talks to Uyghur
Istiqlal TV, describes #China as nation of savages, worse than Jews.
pic.twitter.com/OuRA76zyFS
- Abdullah Bozkurt (@abdbozkurt) June 26, 2017
Nureddin Yıldız, #Erdogan's family Imam, talks to #Uyghur TV, urges Uyghurs
to do Jihad not only against #China but also Jews & others.
pic.twitter.com/WXcnXtd548
- Abdullah Bozkurt (@abdbozkurt) June 26, 2017
The Istiqlal TV report relied on by Zenz published an unverified table of
"re-education detainee figures" allegedly "leaked" by Chinese authorities,
totaling 892,000 individuals in 68 Xinjiang counties as of Spring 2018.
Zenz pads this data by citing reports from Radio Free Asia, a US-funded news
agency created by the CIA during the Cold War to propagandize against China.
(The Uyghur Human Rights Act recently passed by Congress mandates the US
Agency for Global Media - the governmental parent of Radio Free Asia - to
report on Xinjiang, including "assessments of Chinese propaganda
strategies.")
With his cobbling of questionable sources, Zenz extrapolates an extremely
broad estimate "at anywhere between several hundred thousand and just over
one million."
While admitting that "there is no certainty" to his estimate, he has
concluded that it is nevertheless "reasonable to speculate." He attempted to
evade personal responsibility for the figure's questionable reliability,
however, by stating "[t]he accuracy of this estimate is of course predicated
on the supposed validity of the stated sources."
As time goes on, Zenz continues to inflate his speculative estimate of
Uyghur detainees. Speaking at an event organized by the US mission in Geneva
in March 2019, Zenz stated, "Although it is speculative it seems appropriate
to estimate that up to 1.5 million ethnic minorities [have been detained by
China in Xinjiang]." Zenz bumped up his estimate again in a November 2019
interview with Radio Free Asia, claiming China was detaining 1.8 million
people.
In an interview with Der Spiegel, Zenz claimed that China has effectively
outlawed the practice of Islam in Xinjiang. "Anyone in Xinjiang who engages
in any type of religious practice, anyone who even has a single Koran verse
saved on their mobile phone, will be subjected to a brutal process of
reeducation without trial," he maintained.
These incendiary claims have vaulted Zenz to the status of international
"expert" on Xinjiang, earned him invites to testify before US Congress and
Canadian Parliament, and to deliver commentary in major US media outlets
including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and Democracy Now!
Zenz has also been featured by the International Consortium of Investigative
Journalists (ICIJ) as the leading authority legitimizing their recent "China
Cables" investigation. The ICIJ report asserts that "[l]inguists, document
and Xinjiang experts, including Zenz, who reviewed the documents have
expressed confidence in their authenticity."
Given Zenz's habit of speculation and the questionable reliability of the
lone Istiqlal TV media report he relies on for his estimates, it is
troubling that Western governments and media have accepted and promoted his
claims without a trace of skepticism.
A closer look at Zenz's own biases should magnify these concerns, as he is a
full-blown evangelical End Timer who appears to be believe that God has sent
him on a holy crusade against the People's Republic of China.
Fundamentalist Christian 'led by God' in mission against China,
homosexuality, and gender equality
A born-again Christian who claims to preach at his local church, Adrian Zenz
is a lecturer at the European School of Culture and Theology. This
anodyne-sounding campus is actually the German base of Columbia
International University, a US-based evangelical Christian seminary which
considers the "Bible [to be] the ultimate foundation and the final truth in
every aspect of our lives," and whose mission is to "educate people from a
biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ."
Zenz's work on China is inspired by this biblical worldview, as he recently
explained in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. "I feel very clearly
led by God to do this," he said. "I can put it that way. I'm not afraid to
say that. With Xinjiang, things really changed. It became like a mission, or
a ministry."
Along with his "mission" against China, heavenly guidance has apparently
prompted Zenz to denounce homosexuality, gender equality, and the banning of
physical punishment against children as threats to Christianity.
Zenz outlined these views in a book he co-authored in 2012, titled Worthy to
Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation. In
the tome, Zenz discussed the return of Jesus Christ, the coming wrath of
God, and the rise of the Antichrist.
Zenz predicted that the future fall of capitalism will bring to power the
Antichrist within a "few decades." He identified the force that "will usher
the Antichrist into power" as "the economic and financial fall of 'Babylon,'
with 'Babylon' symbolically representing the world's global economic system
(capitalism)."
Worthy to Escape Adrian Zenz Uyghurs China
"Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the
Tribulation," by Adrian Zenz and Marlon L. Sias
Along with the fall of capitalism, Zenz also views "postmodern relativism
and tolerance thinking" and their apparent promotion of homosexuality,
gender equality, and non-violent parenting to be threats to Christianity and
"[t]he deceptive, leopard-like power behind the Antichrist."
"It is very likely that the global persecution of true believers will center
on the charge that they promote 'intolerant views,'" Zenz wrote, "especially
related to preaching against homosexuality."
Zenz argued that "[h]ate crime and anti-discrimination laws will likely play
a major role in the suppression of biblical Christianity" and formed part of
an "anti-Christian 'tolerance' campaign" because they "forbid employers to
discriminate based on gender or sexual orientations."
"The outcome of this process is open rebellion against both God and
God-given human authority structures", Zenz stated, decrying that "[r]ising
numbers of countries are banning all forms of physical punishment of
children, the primary scriptural method for instilling respect for authority
in the young generation and protecting them from rebellious tendencies."
Zenz assures readers that "true scriptural spanking is loving discipline and
not violence."
"Another important God-given authority structure that Satan is attacking
through the postmodern spirit is that of gender authority structures", Zenz
continued. "Through notions of gender equality [.] the enemy is undermining
God's unique but different role assignments for men and women."
Given these obscurantist right-wing views, it is not surprising that Zenz's
proclaimed concern for the condition of Muslims in China does not seem to
extend to Muslims elsewhere.
A search of Zenz's Twitter profile returns no tweets concerning the rise of
Islamophobia in the West, nor US wars and drone strikes against
Muslim-majority countries. The only Tweet by Zenz concerning Muslims that is
unrelated to China is a denial that there is a double standard in how
violence is judged when committed by white people compared to Muslims.
'The End Times is a very fascinating topic'
In his December 10, 2019 testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee,
Adrian Zenz took a victory lap of sorts for Congress' passage of the Uyghur
Human Rights Act the week before, which placed new sanctions on the Chinese
government. Citing the bill's success, he called for opening a new front
against China with a US investigation into "involuntary labor in relation to
Xinjiang."
Adrian Zenz testifying before Congress on December 10, 2019
That same day, Zenz also appeared on a panel dedicated to Xinjiang that was
hosted by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in the US Capitol
Visitor Center.
On hand were Republican heavyweights like Sam Brownback, the ferociously
anti-LGBT, anti-abortion former governor of Kansas and current US
ambassador-at-large for religious freedom, as well as top staffers of Sen.
Marco Rubio, the sponsor of virtually every China sanctions bill to be
rubber-stamped by Congress in recent weeks.
Sam Brownback, a right-wing fundamentalist former senator, at the Victims of
Communism panel on Xinjiang. (Zenz is second to his right).
During a question-and-answer session, The Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal
asked Zenz about his fundamentalist religious views and far-right politics.
Zenz did not distance himself from his past statements denouncing gender
equality and "tolerance thinking," or his advocacy for the "scriptural
spanking" of children. Instead, he asserted that there was no inconsistency
between those views and the quality of his research on China's Xinjiang
region.
"I do have a diverse background and I have personal connections which I do
not believe are inconsistent with my research," Zenz responded to
Blumenthal. "I do not support China's authoritarian methods in any way, and
I do believe there's a God who is bringing judgment in different forms. The
End Times is a very fascinating topic, a very complex topic, and I think,
very relevant. And I think it's good to live aware of that."
Moments later, a visibly upset young man rose from his seat to "condemn the
tankie Max Blumenthal." Unleashing a torrent of insults at Blumenthal, he
made no attempt to refute the journalist's line of questioning.
The rigorously enforced conviction on display in the politically hermetic
chambers of the US Capitol also encompasses the whole of Western media,
where even purportedly progressive outlets have provided Zenz with an
uncritical platform.
From Washington's halls of power to major newsrooms, few are willing to let
inconvenient facts get in the way of a new, undeniably faith-based Cold War
crusade.
