Human rights in China: Beijing endorses legal action against German scholar over Xinjiang abuse claims

Lawsuits seek apologies and financial compensation from Adrian Zenz, the researcher central to claims of abuses in the Chinese region
Zenz says the legal action does not bother him and shows his research is being noticed

Human rights in China

Bloomberg

Published: 7:28pm, 9 Mar 2021

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China has endorsed a series of lawsuits against a German researcher central to claims of abuses in Xinjiang, in the latest move to hit back against foreign allegations of forced labour in the region.

The suits seek apologies and financial compensation from the researcher, Adrian Zenz, according to the state-run news site Tianshannet, which reported the cases on Monday. Specifically, the plaintiffs dispute a report Zenz wrote for the Washington-based Centre for Global Policy in December, in which he said hundreds of thousands of labourers from ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang were “being forced to pick cotton by hand”.

The lawsuits were later endorsed by Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, who blamed Zenz for the Western backlash over Xinjiang.

“Some politicians have chosen to believe his words,” Zhao told a regular news briefing on Tuesday in Beijing.

Zenz said the legal action did not bother him and showed his research was getting noticed.

“It’s really rattling them,” he said by telephone from the United States, where he lives. “It’s important to see that my research is having a real impact.”

China has been ramping up efforts to counter foreign criticism over its Xinjiang policies, which have prompted a US ban on cotton products from the region and spurred calls for a boycott of next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing.

Adrian Zenz says the legal action does not bother him and shows his research is getting noticed. Photo: Handout

Zenz, whose 2018 research was among the first to show that the government had detained more than 1 million Uygur Muslims in the region, has been a leading target of government criticism.

He is a senior fellow in China Studies at the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which was set up by a unanimous Act of Congress in 1993. Chinese officials have repeatedly denied Zenz’s claims, denouncing him as a “fake scholar” and accusing him of working with US intelligence agencies.

Much of Zenz’s research has been corroborated by other scholars and independent media outlets. A United Nations committee confronted China over his estimates in 2018, and the US government and Dutch parliament have recently deemed Beijing’s policies in the region “genocide”.

On Sunday, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi dismissed such claims as “preposterous” in his annual news briefing.

“It is just a rumour fabricated with ulterior motives and a lie through and through,” he said.

Zenz said he believed the lawsuits could bring more attention to the issue.

“It would actually be a welcome opportunity to actually look at the topic in detail and look at the evidence in detail, because the evidence is really strong,” he said.