{"id":150615,"date":"2019-12-30T12:00:12","date_gmt":"2019-12-30T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=150615"},"modified":"2019-12-27T08:58:28","modified_gmt":"2019-12-27T08:58:28","slug":"china-detaining-millions-of-uyghurs-serious-problems-with-claims-by-us-backed-ngo-and-far-right-researcher-led-by-god-against-beijing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/12\/china-detaining-millions-of-uyghurs-serious-problems-with-claims-by-us-backed-ngo-and-far-right-researcher-led-by-god-against-beijing\/","title":{"rendered":"China Detaining Millions of Uyghurs? Serious Problems with Claims by US-Backed NGO and Far-Right Researcher \u2018Led by God\u2019 against Beijing"},"content":{"rendered":"

21 Dec 2019 – 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.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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The US House of Representatives passed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

To drum up support for the sanctions bill, Western governments and media outlets have portrayed the People\u2019s Republic as a human rights violator on par with Nazi Germany. Republican Rep. Chris Smith, for instance, denounced the Chinese government<\/a> for what he called the \u201cmass internment of millions on a scale not seen since the Holocaust,\u201d in \u201cmodern-day concentration camps.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

While this extraordinary claim is treated as unassailable in the West, it is, in fact, based on two highly dubious \u201cstudies.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

The first, by the US government-backed Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders<\/a>, formed its estimate by interviewing a grand total of eight people.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cscriptural spanking\u201d of children, and believes he is \u201cled by God\u201d on a \u201cmission\u201d against China.<\/p>\n

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\u2019 recent \u201cChina Cables\u201d report. His Twitter bio notes that he is \u201cmoving across the Atlantic\u201d from his native Germany.<\/p>\n

Before Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal questioned Zenz<\/a> about his religious \u201cmission,\u201d at a recent event about Xinjiang inside the US Capitol, he had received almost entirely uncritical promotion from Western media.<\/p>\n

The Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, which first popularized the \u201cmillions detained\u201d figure, has also been able to operate without a hint of media scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Washington-backed NGO claims millions detained after interviewing eight people<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The \u201cmillions detained\u201d 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).<\/p>\n

In a 2018 report<\/a> submitted to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination \u2013 often misrepresented in Western media as a UN-authored report \u2013 CHRD \u201cestimate[d] that roughly one million members of ethnic Uyghurs have been sent to \u2018re-education\u2019 detention camps and roughly two million have been forced to attend \u2018re-education\u2019 programs in Xinjiang.\u201d According to CHRD, this figure was \u201c[b]ased on interviews and limited data.\u201d<\/p>\n

While CHRD states that it interviewed dozens of ethnic Uyghurs in the course of its study, their enormous estimate was ultimately based on<\/a> interviews with exactly eight Uyghur individuals<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Based on this absurdly small sample of research subjects in an area whose total population is 20 million, CHRD \u201cextrapolated estimates\u201d that \u201cat least 10% of villagers [\u2026] 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u201cre-education detention camps\u201d and two million more have been \u201cforced to attend day\/evening re-education sessions\u201d.<\/p>\n

Thanks to questionable sources like the CHRD, the United States government has accused<\/a> China of \u201carbitrarily 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2018, State Department official Scott Busby stated<\/a> this this \u201cis the U.S. government assessment, backed by our intelligence community and open source reporting.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chinese government has rejected<\/a> US allegations, and claims that it has in fact established \u201cvocational education and training centers [\u2026] to prevent the breeding and spread of terrorism and religious extremism.\u201d The Chinese Foreign Ministry<\/a> has stated that \u201cthere [are] no so-called \u2018re-education camps\u2019 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a> and Ajit Singh previously reported for The Grayzone<\/a>, CHRD receives significant financial support from Washington\u2019s regime-change arm, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The NGO has spent years campaigning on behalf of extreme right-wing opposition figures who celebrate colonialism and call for the \u201cWesternization\u201d of China.<\/p>\n

\u2018Leading expert\u2019 on Xinjiang relies on speculation and one questionable media report<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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 1983.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> 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<\/a> as \u201cthe organizational haven for neo-Nazis, fascists, and anti-Semitic extremists from two dozen countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

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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<\/a><\/p>\n

— Moss Robeson \ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8 (@mossrobeson__) July 19, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n