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Review of
Adrian
Zenz, “Wash Brains, Cleanse Hearts”: Evidence from Chinese Government Documents
about the Nature and Extent of Xinjiang’s Extrajudicial Internment Campaign,
Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 11, November 2019
(the
Article)
1. - Introduction
The
proposition advanced by Adrian Zenz that is the subject of this review is the
following:
Overall, the author suggests a new speculative
upper limit estimate of 1.8 million or 15.4 percent of adult members of
Xinjiang’s Turkic and Hui ethnic minority groups, and a new minimum estimate of
900,000 or 7.7 percent. These figures pertain to all minority adults in
previous (since spring 2017) or current extrajudicial internment. While still speculative, the new upper limit is
eminently defensible based on existing and new data sets.[1] (Emphasis
added)
Zenz’s use of
the word “speculative” is not consistent since elsewhere in the same article he
qualifies his estimates as “eminently realistic” and “appropriate”.[2]
As a
matter of observation, Zenz’s estimates are generally relied upon by
commentators and policy-makers in Western countries.[3]
They are challenged by, inter alia,
the Chinese Government and media as well as a few doubters in the West.[4]
The point of
this review is to evaluate the reliability of Zenz’s proposition.
This review
does not address Zenz’s charge that the Chinese Government has committed
genocide in Xinjiang, which he advances in another article.[5]
However, any doubts about Zenz’s credibility as to his charge of 1.87 million
Muslim minority people being held in “extrajudicial internment” would of course
affect one’s attitude toward his “genocide” charge.
This review
does not concern any other aspects of the Chinese Government’s policies, such
as toward Hong Kong or Taiwan, or in the South China Sea, or as regards treatment
of political dissidents or the faithful of underground religious groups.
The
conclusion reached here, namely that Zenz’s estimates of the number of Muslim
minority people held in Xinjiang in “extrajudicial” detainees are not reliable,
should incite decision-makers to study more carefully the claims of
mistreatment in Xinjiang.
The
conclusion reached here does not deny the existence, even widespread, of such
mistreatments.
While the
mistreatment of even one person is a cause for concern, the appropriate
reaction does after all vary depending on the scope and the extent of the
mistreatments, hence partly on the number of mistreated.
Which is, of
course, why it would be in the interest of critics of the Chinese Government
from all angles to inflate the number of detainees in Xinjiang to serve their
own special objectives.
Therefore,
to call Zenz to account for exaggerating the number of detainees will serve to
adjust the reactions of decision-makers on this question to a proportionate
level.
Also, Zenz
invokes the status of academic and researcher to buttress his claims. His
articles are presented in what is purported to be an academic context. For
instance, Zenz emphasizes that his articles are “peer-reviewed”.[6]
It is
therefore appropriate that Zenz’s theses be submitted to scrutiny according to
academic standards, which his article does not meet, as will be demonstrated
below.
Sources other than Zenz have advanced estimates of the
number of sites in Xinjiang where Muslim minority people are held against their
will to undergo “re-education”. For instance, as
discussed below, the Australian Strategic Planning Institute and journalists of
Buzzfeed, upon examination of satellite photos, have advanced estimates of the
number of facilities corresponding to mere fractions of Zenz’s estimate (some
27, and more recently 380 by the former,[7] and some 250 by the latter[8]). Not only may those
estimates may be questioned as per below, they do not in any case advance any
estimates of the number of people actually held in “extrajudicial” internment.
In the end, Zenz appears to be the
source upon whom all others rely to advance estimates of the number of Muslim detainees in “extrajudicial“ internment.
Hence the importance of examining the
reliability of his estimates, as undertaken below.
2. - What
does Zenz mean by “extrajudicial internment”?
Zenz’s use of
“extrajudicial internment” as his criterion for identifying those whose
detention he is challenging is improper, and therefore the estimates that apply
such an improper criterion are also objectionable.
2.1. - Which persons should be considered as
being subject to “extrajudicial internment”?
According to
Zenz, those in “extrajudicial internment” are those designated in the
Chinese official documents as “three kinds of individuals” “3类人员”.[9]
But, “3类人员” is defined in the
official sources cited by Zenz himself as referring to : “收押、判刑和’三学’人员（以下简称‘三类’人员）” i.e. those in preventive custody
(pending trial on criminal charges), those convicted on criminal charges and
sentenced to internment and the so-called “三学”,
who are considered to be interned in “work-education camps” without any legal
procedure being brought against them to impute criminal liability.[10]
Thus
Zenz includes in his estimates of people in “extrajudicial internment” those
who are in “custody pending trial” (收押).
That
inclusion may serve to inflate Zenz’s estimates of his numbers, but its
appropriateness is hardly beyond question.
Zenz
himself writes that “detention centers” (kanshousuo 看守所) are
part of the formal criminal justice system throughout China for the
temporary detention of criminal suspects (linshi
jiya fanzui xianyi ren changsuo 临时羁押犯罪嫌疑人场所) while the
state determines whether to press formal charges.[11]
Also,
people held in “custody pending trial” in China do have rights under the
Criminal Procedure Law.[12] Whether those rights meet
international or Western standards generally or those of any other country in
particular, as well as whether they are effectively respected in China, and as
regards specifically the Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, may all be questions
worthy of inquiry.[13]
Still,
persons “held in custody pending trial on accusations of criminal conduct”
ought not to be included in estimates of people being detained against their
will for no reason other than their belonging to a specific minority ethnic
group, which is actually Zenz’s target of criticism.
This
linguistic slippage by Zenz has transversal consequences for the reliability of
his estimates.
For
instance, when considering the declarations of a witness speaking of a site of
internment or in examining an aerial photo of such a site, buildings that are
walled off and guarded might well be occupied by convicted criminals as well as
suspects pending trial. This distinction is all the more important in practice
because the sites identified by Zenz contain some buildings that are walled in
and others that are not.
So
Zenz’s use of the criterion “extrajudicial internment” to delimit the scope of
all those whose internment is objectionable generates ambiguities and
misunderstandings.
A
criterion more suited to the actual target of his objections would seek to
identify those in “work-education camps”, that is to say the “三学人员”.
But
even then, Zenz does not make clear whether he considers
that all “三学人员”
are subject to “internment”.
Nor
does Zenz make clear whether the population in what he identifies as the
“work-education” camps is only “三学人员” or includes
as well those convicted or suspected of crimes as well, and to whom education
and training are being administered.
If the latter
scenario were to be the case, then the observation that some such camps look
like prisons would be understandable and quite normal. In such a scenario, the
debate would be more usefully focused on the abuse of the criminal system to
oppress the Muslim minorities and the disproportion in mixing people subject to
the criminal system with those not accused or convicted of any crime.
To put it differently,
it is not clear whether Zenz considers that all convicts and criminal suspects
in detention are placed in the camps he identifies as implementing
“extrajudicial internment” or do there continue to exist prisons for convicts
and detention centers for suspects. If there continue to exist prisons and
detention centers, then it would be useful to have some idea of what
percentages of each of those categories go for “work-education” to the camps
identified by Zenz as implementing “extrajudicial internment”.
In short,
who exactly are included in Zenz’s estimates is unclear, though in each case
the ambiguity generates an inflation of Zenz’s numbers.
What Zenz might
legitimately and, most likely indisputably, object to, namely the internment
against their wills of people who are neither convicted of criminal offenses
nor accused of such and held in custody pending trial, is not actually the
focus of his discussion or his estimates.
In this first
regard then, Zenz’s estimates are unreliable and inaccurate.
2.2. - Which sites should be considered as
implementing “extrajudicial internment”?
Zenz
identifies eight categories of what (I will call) “sites” as implementing
““extrajudicial internment”:
1. Centralized transformation through education training
centers (jizhong jiaoyu zhuanhua peixun
zhongxin 集中教育转化培训中心)
2. De-extremification transformation through education
bases (qujiduanhua jiaoyu zhuanhua
jidi 去极端化教育转化基地)
3. Transformation through education and correction
centers (jiaoyu zhuanhua ji jiaozhi
zhongxin 教育转化及矫治中心)
4. Legal system schools or legal system training schools
(fazhi xuexiao 法制学校 or fazhi
peixun xuexiao 法制培训学校)
5. Legal system transformation through education centers
(sifaju jiaoyu zhuanhua peixun zhongxin 司法局教育转化培训中心)
6. Centralized closed education training centers (jiaoyu peixun zhongxin 集中封闭教育培训中心)
7. Vocational skills education training centers (zhiye jineng jiaoyu peixun zhongxin 职业技能教育培训中心), or educational training centers (jiaoyu peixun zhongxin 教育培训中心), with the latter presumably representing a short
form of the former，referred to in this article as VTICs,
8. Detention centers (kanshousuo 看守所).[14]
But Zenz
also states that sites in category 4
are not VTICs because in Xinjiang (VTICs) can
typically be distinguished from other vocational facilities by the ending
“center” (zhongxin 中心). If a facility or
institution ends with the word “school”, as in “Vocational Skills School” (zhiye jishu xuexiao 职业技术学校), then it is typically
not a VTIC.[15]
Does this
mean that sites in Category 4 do not implement “internment” (of any kind)?
According to Zenz, in some cases they do:
Of particular concern is the fact that at least some facilities that
used to be regular vocational training “schools” (xuexiao 学校), and that continue to bear
innocuous naming designations, appear to also function as internment
facilities. Examples include the vocational schools in Urumqi and Aksu that
were mentioned above ».[16]
But, in
other cases not:
A government notice from Akdöngjemi Village (阿克墩结米村) in Sëriqbuya Township
(色力布亚镇),
Maralbexi (Bachu) County about political and social control work in villages
mentions the use of the 4th re-education facility on the list: “strengthen
re-education, send focus persons and daily management persons in separate
batches to the township legal system training school (fazhi peixun xuexiao 法制培训学校) to implement
transformation through education.”[17]
supposing that “daily management persons” might be
allowed to go home overnight.
In short, Zenz
takes into account in his estimates as implementing “extrajudicial internment”
sites which should not be included because he
himself recognizes that they are “part of the criminal justice system” (“kanshousuo - 看守所) as well as sites
where not all the “students” should be considered as interned (at least some of
those designated as 学校).
Zenz’s range
of sites considered to be implementing “extrajudicial internment” is thus not
only unclear, and to that extent unreliable, it also too wide, by his own
definitions, and his estimates of persons in “extrajudicial internment” are
necessarily exaggerated.
3. - Zenz’s
sources
Zenz claims
to rely on the Chinese “government’s own statements”.[18]
More specifically, Zenz says he “analyzed three types
of data sources”:
·
“official
government documents and related media reports that are publicly accessible but
not designed for international audiences”,
·
“local
government data in the form of detailed tables and spreadsheets that list the
fates of thousands of minority individuals” and
·
“a
confidential, classified Chinese policy document issued by the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region’s Party Political and Legal Affairs Committee (the
“Confidential Classified Document”).[19]
As will
appear below, the “official government documents” and “local government data”
are rarely identified by name, the links to the sites where the elements might
be found on the internet frequently do not work, the copies advanced by Zenz often
do not bear marks that would tie them to the Chinese Government, the original Chinese language texts are
rarely quoted, and, when they are, Zenz’s translations are sometimes questionable.
The Confidential, Classified Document is said
to have been issued by the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region’s Party Political
and Legal Affairs Committee”.[20]
This document details how Xinjiang’s so-called
“vocational training centers” are supposed to be run”.[21]
According to
Zenz,
This classified document was passed to Uyghurs in exile from a source in
Xinjiang, and then directly passed to the author. Its authenticity has been
independently verified by several linguists and Xinjiang experts. Based on his
experience and through comparison with numerous other government sources, the author
likewise considers the language, formatting, and contents of this document to
be indicative of its authenticity.[22]
Zenz does not
identify in this article who were the “Uyghurs in exile”.
But, the
reliability of the Confidential,
Classified Document does after all depend somewhat on how Zenz obtained
it.
In an earlier
article, Zenz cited information from a “Uyghur exile media organization based
in Istanbul”.[23]
That media organization might be Istiqlal TV,
which, according to some observers, advances the separatist cause while
welcoming extremist figures including Abdulkadir Yapuquan, a reported
leader of the East
Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). ETIM is a separatist group that aims
to establish an independent homeland in Xinjiang called East Turkestan; it 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.[24]
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.”[25]
Also, while Zenz states that the document’s
“authenticity has been
independently verified by several linguists and Xinjiang experts”, he does not
identify those “experts”, or produce any written evidence of their assessments
and conclusions.
Finally,
Zenz attaches importance to the “peer review” that would have been undertaken
by the Journal of Political Risk that has published his articles.[26]
That Journal was founded in May
2013, and it is published by Dr. Anders Corr/Corr Analytics Inc. Its management
team appears to be reputable and generally competent, but does not appear to
claim any expertise in Chinese or Uyghur affairs. Since its founding, the
Journal itself has published only three articles on China (other than Zenz’s).[27]
Basically,
Zenz is asking the reader to trust in the reliability of the “Confidential, Classified Document”
without providing any objective reason for anyone to do so.
4. - Zenz’s
count of detainees in “extrajudicial internment”
Zenz advances
several lines of reasoning to justify his estimate of the number of Muslim
minority people in “extrajudicial internment”.
3.1. -
Estimate based on the number of extrajudicial internment camps
Relying
upon the Confidential, Classified
Document, Zenz claims that there are between 1,300 and 1,400
“extrajudicial internment facilities” in Xinjiang.[28]
First,
Zenz includes in this number some “119 detention centers”, that is “one per administrative
unit above the township level” and opines that “likely there are more than
that”.[29]
But, in so
far as Zenz himself has recognized that “detention centers” (“kanshousuo 看守所) are “part of the
criminal justice system”, any such sites, whatever their number, should not be
considered as “extrajudicial internment facilities”.
Regarding
the remaining 1,200 alleged sites of “extrajudicial internment”’, Zenz observes
that
The classified document
mandates that every region (prefecture) and county (or city) must establish a
“VTIC leadership small group” (职业技能教育培训领导⼩ - zhiye jineng jiaoyu peixun lingdao xiaozu), which is
to be headed by the county committee party secretary.[30]
According to
Zenz,
Xinjiang has a total of 119
city-level, prefectural and county-level administrative units, along with 1,079
township-level administrative units. If each county and township had just one
re-education center or VTIC, the region’s camp network would number around
1,200 facilities.[31]
Zenz does not
claim to be quoting the exact language used in the Confidential, Classified Document.
He is
apparently assuming that for each “VTIC leadership small group”, there is
necessarily at least one extrajudicial internment center. But, he provides no
information that would justify that assumption.
Also,
according to his own interpretation, the number of “extrajudicial internment”
sites would correspond to 119, i.e. one for “every region (prefecture) and county (or city)” to which should be added
1,079 “township-level administrative units”, that is some 1,200 camps in all.[32]
But that the
“township-level administrative units” are not mentioned in the Confidential, Classified Document as
Zenz himself is quoting it.
So the
inclusion by Zenz in his count of those administrative units where
extrajudicial internment sites are to be established of 1,079 of
“township-level administrative units” is dubious.
Zenz is
apparently assuming “prefectures” and “counties” are situated at an equal level
in the Chinese administrative structure.
In such a
case, it might be reasonable to imagine that “the classified document” provides
that every region (prefecture) and
county (or city) should establish its own “VTIC leadership small group”.
(emphasis added)
But,
actually, prefectures are second-level units within a Province, and counties
are a third level, subsumed under prefectures.
For
example, Urumqi is a prefecture-level city, and under its jurisdiction, there
is a county named Urumqi.
So,
it is not clear how the Confidential, Classified Document could be interpreted
as mandating the establishment of two extrajudicial internment sites, one in each
of “Urumqi city-level prefecture sub-division” and another in the “county of
Urumqi” within that city.
In
short, despite Zenz’s omission to disclose the exact language in the alleged Confidential,
Classified Document, it does appear that his interpretation of the language, as
he himself presents it, entails double counting of the mandate to establish “extrajudicial
internment” sites.
Either the
number of such sites mandated would correspond to the number of
prefecture-level sub-divisions (14) or the number of county-level sub-divisions
(106), but not to the sum of the two.
Another technique used by
Zenz to estimate the number of people in “extrajudicial internment” is to
extrapolate from evidence in single villages.
To justify
his inference that each “township-level administrative unit” would establish a
VTIC, Zenz cites two other sources.
First,
Zenz refers to a report of the Xinjiang Daily (新疆日报(乌鲁木齐) of November 18, 2014,[33]
which
obviously precedes by several years the inception of the VTICs. Furthermore,
the report concerns “教育转化基地” which seem more like schools, than detention
centers. Finally, according to the report, 88% of the inhabitants of the
village had received “re-education” (“教育转化率88%”), which percentage suggests by its magnitude that
it refers to all forms of “ training” as internment of 88% of any population is
prima facie implausible.
Secondly, Zenz refers to a “spreadsheet completed
by the Alslan Bagh Township (阿尔斯兰巴格乡) government in Yarkand (Shache)
County, Kashgar Prefecture” that discusses a “system of VTICs and/or
re-education camps in at least each township and urban district”. Document. But
the source he cites as “Source reference
code: 18204”, but the actual document is not revealed and no other method to
verify its contents is stated.[34]
Thirdly,
Zenz cites a letter of February 20, 2018 to a county government, which he
alleges contains a complaint about a “serious lack of cadres because they have
been deployed to the VTICs”.[35] But, in
that letter, there is this sentence explaining one of several challenges in the
management of schools is that many local cadres have been affected to what Zenz
considers to be extrajudicial internment camps:
四是充实到各乡镇场，由于之前教培中心大量使用乡镇干部，乡镇场缺干部现象十分严重，完全可以补足乡政府干部缺口。
But, this point does not suggest that there are
extrajudicial internment camps in every township, only that township-level
cadres have been affected to such camps (whatever be their number and
location).
Leaving aside the unreliability of
extrapolations from one village out of the 8,834 in Xinjiang, Zenz in many
cases does not show the original document containing the information on which
he relies (see his footnote numbers 65
“Source reference code: 18204”, 70 “Source
reference code: 18305”, 71: “Source reference code: 18761”, 72: “Source
reference code: 21963”, and 74: ‘Source reference code: 22735”).[36]
Nor does Zenz always quote the original
Chinese language from those documents on which he is relying.
When he does provide the
original Chinese, there occur translation errors.
For
example, Zenz writes on page 24:
Similarly, in Oyluk Village (乌依鲁克村), Yantak Township, (央塔克乡),
Makit (Maigaiti) County (Kashgar Prefecture), “three types of persons”
households made up 91 of 456 or 20 percent of all households in 2018.
The associated footnote 73 refers to a document
attached to Zenz’s article, which is entitled:
2018年自治区科技成果转化示范专项-科技精准扶贫攻坚计划
（科技特派员扶贫行动）拟立项项目清单
In that
document, there is only one reference to “三类人员“。 It does relate to
the districts referred to by Zenz. But, here is the content:
项目建设包括5千只羊的棚圈，累计托管贫困户、低保户、三类人员家属。贫困户269户1350只羊、低保户96户481只羊、三类人员91户455只羊。项目启动预计每年分红贫困户可带动增收 500元/户。
This means
that in these districts there are 91 “三类人员 (san lei ren yuan)” households that
own 455 sheep.
In short, on
the above lines of reasoning, Zenz does not justify even remotely his estimate
that there exist 1,400 “extrajudicial internment“ sites in Xinjiang.
3.3. - Estimate based on the amounts of
Xinjiang Government expenditures
First,
Zenz refers to a Xinjiang Government report that welfare payments guaranteeing minimum living standard (dibao 低保) to families of
persons in “education and training persons” - jiao yu pei xun ren yuan - 教育培训人员) rose
220.6 % between January and July 2018.[37]
It bears mentioning that these payments are stated by
Zenz to be made to the “relatives” of detainees,[38] which
observation does after all run counter to his accusation of generalized persecution
of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.
According to Zenz, the alleged increase of welfare
payments would at least in part be attributable to an increase in the number of
people in “extrajudicial internment”.[39]
In fact, the table presented by Zenz refers not to “jiao yu pei xun ren yuan 教育培训人员”, but instead to “宗教教职人员“ (zong jiao jiao zhi ren
yuan),[40] which might be translated
as “persons in religious education and work-education”.
Also, the tables Zenz presents to support his claim
show the amounts of payments made in July 2018 but there are no numbers for any
other period, so his comparison in unverifiable using the documents he refers
to.
What is perhaps more informative is that, of the 15 乡镇 (villages and towns),
the payments were made in only 9.[41] As Zenz does not comment
this point, it is a matter for speculation whether this would mean that in the
remaining six towns/villages, no local inhabitant was in a VTIC.
Secondly,
Zenz refers to two sources he had already used in his July 2019 JPR article.
One source is a
spreadsheet entitled 表十二：2019年自治区本级一般公共预算政府预算支出经济分类明细表, in short the public budget for autonomous
districts.
In fact, Zenz’s footnote identifying this source (number 76) in the
November article here commented is now dead[42] as is
the link thereto as referenced in footnote 56 of his JPR 2019 article.[43]
But, I had previously downloaded the tables while the link in the July
JPR article was still active.[44]
The
tables themselves bear no markings of the Government。
But supposing the document to be authentic, a table covering “Subsidies
from the Autonomous Region to Localities”[45]， there does appear line for
‘职业教育培训中心学员伙食费补助 » corresponding to a total of 1.58 billion RMB,
which are allocated as follows:
Yili Prefecture 200
million
Aksu Area 250 million
Kyzyl Suzhou 10 million
Kashgar Area 660 million
Hotan 360 million
Apparently,
no such food subsidies were allocated in the other nine prefectures in Xinjiang.
Zenz does not
address the question whether the absence of such subsidies in nine prefectures
might indicate that there are no VTICs in those areas.
Mr. Zenz concludes
on this basis that these subsidies could have sufficed to feed 395,000 people,
which presumably is his estimate of a number of detainees in VTICs.
But, Zenz
does not detail his calculation.
Obviously,
an estimate of 395,000 detainees is less than 50% of Zenz’s lower bound
estimate and not even a quarter of his “speculative upper estimate” of 1.87
million detainees.
According
to Zenz,
If the cost (and quality)
of the food given to VTIC detainee is only half that of the average PLA
soldier, which appears more than likely, then that figure doubles
but even then the result is
lower than his own lower bound estimate and less than half his speculative
upper estimate”.[46]
Further,
Zenz argues that
If detainees were on a very
poor diet below common calorie intake requirements for adults, and we assumed a
daily food allowance of 4.5 RMB (such as 1.5 RMB per meal with three daily
meals), the VTIC detainee figure could be just below one million.[47]
But that
result, even assuming it were an accurate calculation based given Zenz’s own
assumptions and methods, remains at about the level his lower estimate of
900,000 detainees and almost 50% below his “speculative upper estimate” of 1.87
million detainees.
Actually, an
effort to retro-engineer the calculation using Zenz’s reasoning belies his
estimate of about one million detainees in “extrajudicial internment”.
More
specifically, it may be noted that Zenz refers to two documents:
1. 中美俄三国军人伙食比比看 解放军设四类灶
[ 2007-07-18 09:14 ]
i.e. a comparison in China Daily of expenses for the
Chinese, American and Russian militaries.[48]
The data relate to 2007.
解放军目前的伙食费标准分别为：一类灶每人每天１.１元、二类灶１.３元、三类灶２.３元、四类灶３.９元，(i.e. food expenses
would have ranged between 1,1 RMB per day per person or as high as 3.9 RMB
depending on the class of the personnel),
2. A web site operated by a Taiwanese
meals Management Services Limited Company that is has passed ISO9001: 2000
international certification system for food service businesses.[49] It
specializes in the construction and food canteen contractor, canteen kitchen
production installation, canteen ingredients distribution, fast food
distribution and banquets.
It
proposes a range of meals with budgets for a balanced diet.
The
budgets range between 8 and 18 RMB per day.
The
crucial variable in extrapolating from the food budget to the number of
detainees is the cost of the food.
Depending
on whether the cost taken is 1.1 RMB per day or 3.9 RMB, the number of people that
would be fed over one year varies from 372,322 to 1,320,050, the latter figure
would assume a diet of the same cost as that of feeding the
lowest-ranked soldier in the People’s Liberation Army in 2007.[50]
If those costs were adjusted for inflation
(21.1% over the 2007-2019 period), then the budget could have fed from 310,268
to 1,090,950 people per year.[51]
In short,
there is no apparent basis for Zenz’s “speculative upper estimate” of 1.87
million detainees.
3.4. - Estimate based on the “leaked document”
Zenz starts
from his previous estimate of 1.06 million people “directly affected by
Xinjiang’s extrajudicial internment and re-education drive” as advanced in one
of his earlier publications.[52]
In that
prior article, Zenz recognizes that: “Unfortunately, there is no official
information available on numbers of re-education detainees”.[53]
Zenz then cites
“Mizutani, N. 2018”.[54]
Presumably,
Zenz is referring to Naoko Mizutani who is a Japanese activist in favor of the
Uyghur cause, considered by at least one observer to have been acting “not
within an anti-Chinese context”, at least in 2013.[55]
In a
Japanese Newsweek article of March 13, 2018, Mizutani reproduces a table
originally published by Isteklar TV, which is a “Uyghur
exile media organization based in Istanbul”.[56]
According
to Zenz, the table was “reportedly leaked from a reliable source within
(Xinjiang’s) public security agencies”.[57]
Neither
Mizutani nor Zenz produces a copy of the table allegedly published by Isteklar TV.
Mizutani
does publish a table that is purported to reproduce the contents of the table
published by Isteklar TV.
This table
was published in Japanese,[58] though many of the
characters could be Chinese.
Mizutani states that she thinks that the information
in the table dates from 2017 when the “re-education” program is said to have
begun.
According the Mizutani, the table shows the number of
“detained” persons.
The table shows numbers relating to 68 subdivisions in
Xinjiang.
At the bottom of the column the
column entitled “收监人数“，there does appear the number 892,239.
It would seem that the proper translation of “收监人数“ is “imprisoned”.
If that translation is correct, then the table relied
upon by Mizutani and Zenz does not provide information on the number of those
in “extrajudicial internment”.
In
addition, Zenz cites two reports published by Radio Free Asia (a United States
government–funded, non-profit international broadcasting corporation):
·
Around 120,000 Uyghurs Detained
For Political Re- Education in Xinjiang’s Kashgar Prefecture, January 22, 2018,[59]
·
Xinjiang Authorities Up Detentions
in Uyghur Majority Areas of Ghulja City, March 19, 2018.[60]
According to the first article,
The security chief of Kashgar city’s Chasa township
recently told RFA on condition of anonymity that “approximately 120,000”
Uyghurs are being held throughout the prefecture, based on information he has
received from other area officials.
According to the second article,
·
The security chief of No. 2 Village said that 254
residents out of the 1,070 households under his administration—or nearly one
member of every four homes—are currently held in re-education camps, and that
62 of them had been taken into custody since March 3.
.
. .
·
The chief said he had “received orders from above” and
was “implementing the requirements demanded by the regional government,” adding
that he was told to attain a quota of detainees, without providing further
details.
. . .
A staff member who answered the phone at
Bayanday’s No. 3 Village committee told RFA on condition of anonymity that his
office had been instructed to send “10 percent” of the 4,131 residents living
in 1,073 households under its supervision to re-education camps
. . .
·
Officials in Hotan (Hetian) prefecture’s Qaraqash
(Moyu) county earlier told RFA that they had been ordered to send 40 percent of
area residents to re-education camps, and said they were having trouble meeting
the quota.
From these widely varying reports
from one prefecture, one township and two villages, Zenz concludes:
When assuming a Muslim adult
internment rate of 10 percent for cities with a majority Muslim population
share and of 5 percent for cities where this population share is below 50
percent, Xinjiang's total re-education internment figure may be estimated at
just over one million (approx. 1,060,000). (page 28) (Presumably, Zenz actually
means prefectures, not cities).
. . .
While there is no certainty, it is
reasonable to speculate that the total number of detainees might range anywhere
between several hundred thousand and just over one million.[61]
As Zenz provides no table
showing the numbers he used to make his calculations, one is left to do that
research for oneself.
Using Zenz’s
assumptions and his data, it is possible to “retro-engineer” the process to verify
his argument that his May 2018
upper limit estimate of 1.06 million persons interned was based on a 10
percent internment share of Uyghur and Kazakh adults aged 20 to 79 years, using
data from the 2010 census, and adjusted for population growth between 2010 and
2015 based on updated population figures from the 2015 mini census for
Xinjiang.[62]
In Exhibit 11,[63]
using the 2010 census and the 2015 census to gross up the numbers from the 2010
census and assuming that the population below 20 years of age corresponds to
some 26% of the population, and assuming Zenz’s rates of internment, the total
number of detainees would correspond to 780,636, not 1.06 million.
In other words, granting all of
Zenz’s assumptions his upper estimate as of his July 2019 JPR article would
appear to be overstated by about one third.
But, it takes a great act of
faith to accept all Zenz’s assumptions:
·
RFA is a US government-owned
company, how objective is it really?
·
the exact circumstances in which
RFA obtained the information it reported are unknown, for example, exactly what
questions did RFA ask, was it clear to respondents that they were being asked
about those in “extrajudicial internment”?
·
did RFA personnel directly conduct
the interviews? did RFA identify itself to those whom it was interviewing?
·
were those questioned asked about
how the persons detained were selected? what were their answers?
·
were those interviewed asked for
what periods the detainees were held (days, weeks, months)? what were their
answers?
·
how likely is it that someone
answering a telephone call at a detention center would directly discuss with
RFA (or anyone else outside the chain of command for that matter) information
about the number of detainees in the center?
·
since RFA’s sources for the above
information, , and even the authors of its articles, are unidentified, how can
their reliability be assessed?
Furthermore, Zenz extrapolates
from observations in a few villages to the entire Xinjiang Region.
According
to a document advanced by Zenz himself, the VTICs received food subsidies in
only five of the prefectures: Aksu Area, Kyzyl Suzhou, Kashgar Area, Hotan and Yili. So, if those were the only prefectures
where VTICs had been established, then the total of detainees would amount to 635,499
detainees, and that is granting all of Zenz’s other assumptions.[64]
Even
granting Zenz his estimate of July 2019 of 1.6 million detainees in
“extrajudicial internment”, how does he justify increasing it to 1.8 million by
November 2019?
3.5. - Bases for increasing the estimate to
1.8 million detainees in VTICs
Zenz
reasons as follows:
The information that has become available since (his previous
publication), including the new data presented in this paper, indicate not only
that internment shares in regions with a high Turkic minority population range
anywhere between 10 to nearly 30 percent; numerous witness accounts indicate
that internment shares in regions where Turkic minorities constitute only a
small share of the population, such as Karamay or Urumqi, have risen
significantly since 2017. It is no longer safe to assume that internment shares
there are drastically lower than in Uyghur or Kazakh majority population areas.
As stated above, the classified document mandates the establishment of VTIC
administrative structures in every county in Xinjiang. Importantly, regions
with high Han population shares have also seen a substantial increase in
detention center capacity. Witness accounts indicate that these types of
facilities are used to intern large and growing numbers of ethnic minorities
for re-education purposes. Xinjiang’s domestic security spending on detention
center management grew by 239 percent between 2016 and 2017, with the increase
in a sample of Turkic minority regions amounting to 304 percent.[65]
First, as noted above, Zenz’s “new data” indicating internment
rates of 10 to 30% in regions with “high Turkic minority shares” of the
population as well indicating significant rises in internment even in regions
where such populations are in the minority refer to anecdotal accounts given by
a few mostly unidentified people and Zenz provides no tangible proof of what
they are alleged to have said, or even to whom, when, etc..
Secondly, while the documents relied upon by Zenz do
suggest that a VTIC administrative structure should be established in each
county (and assuming that document to be reliable), this does not necessarily
mean that a VTIC, i.e., a physical camp, need be established in each county. In
other words, the establishment of a VTIC in any county does not exclude that
any one VTIC could gather detainees from several counties.
Thirdly, to
support his claim that
Xinjiang’s domestic security spending on detention center management
grew by 239 percent between 2016 and 2017, with the increase in a sample of
Turkic minority regions amounting to 304 percent,[66]
Zenz refers to another
of his articles, this one published on November 5, 2018, on
the web site entitled China Brief, operated by the Jamestown Foundation, a
Washington think tank specialized on U.S. national security issues, and those
in relation with China in particular.[67]
In the
earlier article, Zenz wrote that:
Expenditures on detention centers in counties with large concentrations
of ethnic minorities quadrupled, indicating that re-education is not the only
form of mass detainment in the XUAR.[68]
Zenz states
that the figures in his article were “manually calculated” by himself using
sources from “national and provincial finance departments”.[69]
Zenz cites no
specific reports on which he relied let alone where they might be found.
Zenz does not
provide copies of any of the documents he claims to have used as his sources.
The three
documents referenced at the end of article lead to documents that concern
social security expenditures （“社会保章“） for the period 2012-2016,[70]
and to the number of people in vocational training in 2017 and 2018 (”职业就能培训“) (Exhibits 11 and
12).[71]
There is no language in those documents even remotely suggesting that they
concern “extrajudicial internment”.
Even granting the reliability
of Zenz’s sources, his observation in one of his tables that expenditures for “detention
center management” increased 239% in Xinjiang from 2016 to 2017 and by 307% in
a “sample” of “ethnic minority prefectures and counties” raises the question of
the statistical significance of his sample.[72]
Zenz provides no information on which or how many prefectures and counties were
included in the “sample” or how representative they are of the entire minority
population.
Furthermore, Zenz states that
in the Chinese version of his source, the account in question is entitled “抱抽收教场所管理“.[73]
But, that formulation does not appear anywhere in Zenz’s various lists of “extrajudicial
internment centers”.
Indeed, the expression is
even questionable as corresponding to proper Chinese as a search on baidu.com
turns up no entries for this expression
Zenz then turns to
satellite photos to support his increase in his estimate of “extrajudicial
internment” detainees from 1 million to 1.8 million.
The first photo, taken in October 2018, is of the
Qaghiliq (Yecheng) County Legal System Transformation Through Education and
Vocational Training School.[74]
Zenz does not provide its name in Chinese. But it
bears remembering that Zenz himself observes that establishments designated as
schools (“学校”) are often genuine schools and do not implement
“internment”, the designations of which centers usually end in “中心“.[75]
Upon examination of a satellite photo of the site that I downloaded
from google.earth on August 28, 2020,[76]
the buildings Zenz identified as “detention” camps appear to be walled in and
to have turrets, which would of course support the conclusion that they are
detention centers (or prisons for that matter).
But, the buildings that Zenz calls a “work-education camp” are
clearly not walled in or otherwise enclosed. Also, these buildings are tiny
compared with those that Zenz says are “detention camps”.
The buildings appear to be in a good state of repair
and there are green spaces in amounts that seem inconsistent with a site that
would be used to inflict inhumane treatment.
The second photo, taken
in May 2019, is of the Yengishahar (Shule) County Legal System Transformation
Through Education School (fazhi jiaoyu zhuanhua xuexiao 法制教育转化学校) in Baren Township (巴仁乡). Again, it bears mentioning that the site is
designated as a “school” not as a “detention center”.[77]
Zenz does not
actually use the words “detention” or “internment” in referring to the
buildings on this site. But he includes a photo of Alcatraz and invites the
reader to compare the photos of the two sites, so the inference is obvious.[78]
Still, upon
examining a photo of the Yengishahar site that I downloaded from google earth
on August 28,[79]
2020, it is not clear that any of its buildings are walled in.
And some are clearly
not walled in.
The third photo, taken in June, 2019, is of the Hotan
Legal System Education and Training Center (hetian
xian sifa ju jiaoyu peixun zhongxin 和田县司法局教育培训中心).[80] According
to Zenz, this site was visited by the New
York Times “in the middle of 2018”.[81]
Zenz again compares the photo of the Hotan site with
Alcatraz.[82]
What Zenz designates as “detention” centers do appear
to be walled in, although that is not perfectly clear.
On the other hand, the buildings that Zenz claims are “re-education
centers” are clearly not walled in or otherwise enclosed. As Zenz observes,
there are sports facilities, and one cannot but wonder how their presence is
consistent with the supposed objective claimed by Zenz of the infliction of
inhumane treatment.
Zenz does not relay any of the comments made by the
New York Times journalist who visited the site.
But three in particular are quite significant with
respect to the number of people who are interned at this site.
The author, Chris Buckley, writes that:
1. Inside (the Hotan site), hundreds of ethnic Uighur Muslims
spend their days in a high-pressure indoctrination program, where they are
forced to listen to lectures, sing hymns praising the Chinese Communist Party
and write “self-criticism” essays, according to detainees who have been
released. (emphasis added),
2. Former detainees that were
interviewed spoke of detentions of several months,
3. Some facilities are designed for
inmates who are allowed to go home at night.[83]
It will be
recalled that Zenz’s comparison with Alcatraz is no doubt intended to suggest
that there many thousands of detainees at the Hotan site, not “hundreds”.
Also, Zenz
never considers the possibility that the persons undergoing “re-education”
might not be interned, but apparently based on Buckley’s reporting at least
some are in fact not resident at the Hotan center
To reach
his upper estimate of 1.8 million Uyghur and Kazakh in extrajudicial internment,
Zenz proceeds in two stages.
First,
Zenz explains his calculation arriving at 1.6 million detainees as follows:
Consequently,
the author’s new upper limit extrajudicial internment estimate (including
detention centers, excluding prisons) is based on the following assumptions:
internment shares in regions with a Turkic (Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz) minority
population of 40 percent or higher are assumed to reach an average adult
population current extrajudicial internment of 16 percent; those with a Turkic
minority population share between 30 and 40 percent have an assumed internment
share of 12.5 percent; and those below 30 percent an assumed internment share
of 10.0 percent. Moreover, the calculation assumes a generic internment share
among the Hui, a Muslim minority group, of 4.5 percent. Despite the fact that
the Hui have a long tradition of assimilation into Chinese language and
culture, there are growing indications that the Hui are also being targeted.
These internment share estimates are then multiplied
by adult population figures from the 2015 mini census. The results are again
multiplied by adult population shares derived from the 2010 census (by county),
given that the 2010 census is the most recent reliable data point for
population breakdown by age cohort. The total internment estimate figure is
then adjusted for the XUAR’s population increase from 23.22 million in 2015 to
25.3 million in 2019. The 2019 estimate was calculated based on a 2018
population of 24.87 million and an average reported annual population growth of
1.75 percent between 2015 and 2018.[84]
But,
there are numerous reasons to doubt the validity of Zenz’s assumptions.
First, according to the Shahit Data Base,[85] on which Zenz himself relies:
·
only 10,526 “victims
of mass
incarcerations of ethnic minority citizens” have been nominally identified and
included in the data base (though Shahit does claim that there are ”hundreds of
thousands, if not millions, being locked up in de facto concentration
camps, given severe prison terms, or kept in notoriously inhumane police
custody”),
·
the number of “detained individuals and other
victims parsed out from the large cache of internal documents obtained by
scholar Adrian Zenz” was “3,304”,
·
according to “a government document from Qaraqash County that was
leaked abroad in the summer of 2019”,[86] there were “584”
“victims” in “education camps”,
·
of the some 400
villages, subdistricts and municipalities included in the data base, only some
42 are reported to have a number of “victims” exceeding 1% of their populations
(1 above 60% -160/265 inhabitants, 4 above 20% - 74/359, 112/510, 103/475, 6
above 10% below 20%, 4 above 5% and below 10%, and 27 above 1% and below 10%),
·
those percentages
concern males, whereas female victim percentages are a fraction thereof,
·
the numbers of Kyrghiz
and Hui people who are
interned are an infinitesimal fraction of the total number of detainees
included in the data base (182 Kyrghyz and 14 Hui out of 10,526 detainees),
·
only 34% of the
“victims of mass
incarcerations of ethnic minority citizens” are in what Zenz designates as
“extrajudicial internment”, that is 281 people in “custody” and 2,908 in (what
Shahit calls) “concentration camps” and at least 8.3% are not in any form of
“internment”, namely those whose documents have been withheld, those in
town/house arrest, and those in forced job placement, to which might be added
3,2% qualified by Shahit as ”unclear (soft)”.
|
PERSONS |
SHARE |
|
|
documents
withheld |
418 |
0,05 |
|
house/town
arrest |
214 |
0,02 |
|
unclear
(soft) |
310 |
0,03 |
|
in
custody |
281 |
0,03 |
|
“concentration
camp” |
2908 |
0,33 |
|
Sentenced
|
1699 |
0,19 |
|
Unclear
(hard) |
1916 |
0,21 |
|
Forced
job placement |
104 |
0,01 |
|
Orphanage |
33 |
0,00 |
|
No news
for over a year |
818 |
0,09 |
|
Free |
115 |
0,01 |
|
Other |
100 |
0,01 |
|
Total |
8916 |
1,00 |
·
on another page of
the Shahit site, some 392 of the people identified as being “victims of mass incarcerations” are in
“forced job placement”,[87]
·
of the 4,002 people included in the data base who responded to the
question concerning the duration of their internment, it would appear that
nearly all declared a period of two months,
·
2,800 of these victims’ identities were imported from the some odd 2,500
files obtained by Zenz, from which it seems reasonable to infer that Zenz has
gathered only some 2,800 identities to support claims of 1.8 million detainees,
·
according to the Shahit Data
Base, “A number of individuals from these
(Zenz) sheets have appeared in official Chinese databases, thereby confirming
their validity”; but it may reasonably be questioned whether that overlap
actually proves that any, let alone, all 2,800 such people were in
“extrajudicial internment”,
·
the Shahit
Data Base indicates that “While the (Zenz) cache has unfortunately not been
made public, shahit.biz has been allowed limited access for the purpose of
adding victims to our database”, which underlines the importance of the
question why these files are not made public and why was Shahit Data Base given
only “limited access” to them, again undermining the reliability of Zenz's
claims of 1.8 million detainees,
·
On the
Shahit Data Base, it is indicated that:
A total of 2533 people are reported as being
explicitly in police custody (收押), in camp/"training"/"education"
(送培，教培，转化教育，收教),
sentenced (判刑),
or as "special" (特殊人员) or "three kinds" (三类人员), with the latter
generally indicating that the person is in one of the aforementioned three
categories (custody/camp/prison), though the
exact detention type is unclear. (emphasis added)
In other words, upon inspection of the Zenz lists,
Shahit could not determine what shares of the identified individuals were in
“extrajudicial internment” and what share were in prison; why then would Zenz’s
own interpretations of the information and allocations of shares among the
three categories be accepted as reliable.
Despite all those
reasons for doubting the reliability of Zenz’s estimate of the numbers of
people held in “extrajudicial internment”, and even if all his assumptions were
granted and using his estimates of internment rates, one does still does not
arrive at his estimates.
Thus, according to
Zenz’s own assumptions and reasoning, the total number of detainees would be
1.483 million, not 1.6 million.[88]
Zenz then explains
how he justifies raising his higher estimate from 1.6 million detainees to 1.8
million:
In order to arrive at an estimate of all
persons who are currently or have previously been in such internment, we need
to estimate how many persons may have been released from internment between
2017 and 2019. This includes all forms of “release”, including forced labor
placements. In the Shahit database, 9.4% (154 of 1,642) of those in internment
(excluding prisoners) are marked as “released” or in “forced labor”. . . For
the purposes of this publication, a release share of 10% persons is used, with
the assumption that most of those would have been “released” into forced labor
placements. . .
Adding 177,000 to the current internment
estimate of 1.6 million results in a combined figure of 1.777 million, or
approximately 1.8 million. . . [89]
Zenz does not
cite a specific place on the Shahit Data Base web site where he found the
information on which he bases his projection of 9.4% of all detainees released
from “internment” being into “forced labor”.
For my part,
I cannot find on the Shahit Data Base web site the information Zenz is claiming
to quote.
On the other hand, on the Shahit Data
Base, there does appear a number for people in “forced job placement”, which is
104 out of an alleged total of 3,226 people in “custody” (281) and in
“concentration camps” (2,908).[90]
So, the percentage of those in “forced
job placement” out of all those in “extrajudicial interment” would be 3,2%. If
any of those people had been placed directly in “forced job placement” and not
transited through “extrajudicial internment”, then that percentage would be
reduced further.
Still, even assuming that the percentage
of those from released from “extrajudicial internment” to “forced job
placement” were 3,2%, then Zenz’s increase to his 1.6 million base would not be
177,000 but 51,532.
Furthermore, neither Zenz nor the Shahit
Data Base provide the Chinese language expression for what they respectively
translate as “ forced labor“ and “forced job placement”.
Zenz might reasonably be thought to
intend the reader to imagine a régime of arduous labor in a context of
internment.
But the Shahit translation leaves open
the possibility that this régime actually involves a placement in a job in
civil society subject to obligatory presence of the person involved but without
any internment.
And, in the
end, Zenz admits that “An unknown subset of these persons will have been
interned in the VTICs alone”,[91] which reinforces the impression
that Zenz himself does not claim to know what percentages of detainees in
“extrajudicial internment” are in fact in “work-education camps”, versus being
in “custody pending trial”.
In short, at
this stage of Zenz’s development of his argument, the number of detainees in
“extrajudicial internment” would not be 1.870 million as he claims, but instead
at most (based on his own highly dubious assumptions and methods of
calculation) 1.534 million, that is a base of 1.483 million to which would be
added 51,532 detainees released from “extrajudicial internment” into “forced
labor”.
Then,
Zenz seeks to “corroborate” his estimate of 1.870 million detainees in
“extrajudicial internment” as follows:
This new speculative upper limit
internment estimate can be corroborated by considering the total number and
possible average capacity of Xinjiang’s extrajudicial internment facilities. As
discussed above, we must assume that the region has likely up to 1,300 or 1,400
extrajudicial internment facilities of all types. At least several of these
have seen a massive enlargement of their capacity, and numerous witnesses
testify to the fact that they are incredibly overcrowded.[92]
But, as noted
above, Zenz does not provide evidence that there are 1,300 to 1,400 “extrajudicial
internment facilities of all types”.
Others, such as the Australian Strategic
Planning Institute or journalists of Buzzfeed, upon examination of satellite
photos, have advanced estimates of the number of facilities corresponding to
mere fractions of Zenz’s estimate (some 27, and more recently 380 by the
former,[93] and some 250 by the
latter[94]). And even those
estimates may be questioned, for instance:
·
because some of the
work-education facilities included in their estimates are not “internment”
sites, but instead open, day-training type sites,
·
because their
estimates may include actual prisons (which would then not be “extrajudicial”
as defined by Zenz himself) and
·
because those
estimates might include “sites for holding suspects of crimes pending their
trials”, which at least arguably should not be qualified as “extrajudicial“
internment.
Zenz then undertakes calculations of
numbers of detainees based on the physical capacity of the some 1,400
“internment” sites that he claims have been put into operation, but since he
does not provide proof for his estimate of the number of those sites, this line
of argument is unreliable.
Still, to justify his estimate of the
physical capacities of the sites he claims exist, he observes that:
. . . the four or five floor buildings
of a typical size for re-education camps has a floor space between 4,500 and
8,000 sqm. For example, Wusu City (Ili Prefecture) commissioned a Legal Systems
Training School in July 2017 with a five-floor dormitory building featuring a
floor space of 7,670sqm.[91] The Vocational Training Center commissioned by
Shuimogou District in Urumqi City in April 2018 was to have a six-floor
dormitory building with 7,300sqm for males, and a 4,700sqm building for
females. These camps are essentially only medium-sized in terms of total floor
space.[95]
But, upon,
examination of the sources Zenz cites to support his observations, they are
simply not borne out.
First, as regards
the Wusu site, Zenz refers the reader to another of his articles to justify his
observations about the Wusu site.[96] But, therein, the site is
identified as a “legal system training school (“法制培训学校”) not as a “中心”[97]
and it will be recalled that Zenz himself acknowledges
that many sites designated as “schools - 学校” are
in fact dedicated to teaching and are not “internment” sites.[98]
Admittedly, Zenz adds to his own
description of the project that it concerns the
Construction
of new 3-floor teaching building (2,393 sqm) and 5-floor dormitory (7,670sqm).
The government construction work report states that new security features were
added to the facility, including a police station and steel-reinforced concrete
walls.[99]
But, the links to both sources Zenz cites to justify
his interpretation are dead.[100]
As regards the Shuimogou site, Zenz again
refers to his prior article where his description of the project may be found.
He identifies it as concerning a “Vocational training center (职业技能教育培训中心)”
and more particularly:
Construction
of a 36,527sqm compound, including an 8,000sqm underground facility, a 6 floor
7,300 sqm dormitory, a 4,700 sqm female student building, a 500 sqm police
station, power supply and heating system, surrounding wall and fence, security
monitoring system.[101]
But,
once again, the link to the source he cites to justify his description does not
work.[102]
Still, even granting Zenz the accuracy of
his allegations as to the nature of the projects in question, and leaving aside
that he purports to extrapolate reliably from his observations of two sites to
the entire population of the 1,400 sites he alleges exist (such as to justify
his estimate of the number of detainees in “extrajudicial internment”), he then
goes on to estimate the number of detainees that such sites could hold.
To do so, Zenz reasons that
If 65 percent of the floor space is used for actual
dorm space, they could easily intern between 2,500 and 3,900 persons when
assuming a generous 2 sqm dorm floor space per person . . .[103]
But, even taking his ratios as valid,
the calculations do not yield the results he advances:
((7300+7670)/2) * 0,65 = 2,433
2
Zenz
then postulates that, based on interviews with former detainees, the density of
occupation of the dormitories could be as high as 0.5 square meter per person.
But Zenz, does not specify the interviews on which he is relying, or how many.
A density of 0.5
persons per square meter imagines that 1.8 million people would be obliged to lie
side-by-side packed one against another.
Zenz does cite in
this context a report of the New York Times after its reporters visited a
“camp” “right next to the Hotan Legal System Education and Training Center”.[104]
But, he does not
identify the article specifically.
Still, upon investigation, one such article by journalists of the NYT
presents a picture that simply does not conform with Zenz’s representations of
the density of occupation.[105] The article contains a
picture taken in a dormitory on which it is apparent that each occupant has
his/her own bed and the beds are not stacked on top of each other.[106]
This
article, which is no way apologetic about criticizing the “indoctrination” process
or the “harsh” conditions in the camp, nevertheless observes that
The impeccably
neat, six-story building was built in 2017 and has a capacity of 447 people.
. . .
Detainees sleep six to room. There is a music room, an art room, a
library with books mostly in Chinese, a room to learn how to give manicures and
another to learn to cut hair.
. . .
By his account, Mr. Kebayir was now earning a decent wage — 2,100
renminbi last month, about $300 — stitching soles onto leather shoes at one of
the new factories.
Similarly, as noted above,
another article in the NYT describes the Hotan site as containing “hundreds
of ethnic Uighur Muslims spend their days in a high-pressure indoctrination
program”.[107]
So, not only does
Zenz fail to provide reliable evidence to support his claims about the number
of “internment” sites, the sources he himself advances contradict his claims
about the density of occupation of the sites (not to mention that the “forced labor”
which he alleges appears to be remunerated by a “decent wage”).
Altogether,
Zenz nevertheless concludes that
When considering all available
sources of information, these new upper and lower limit estimates of 1.8
million and 900,000 respectively are eminently realistic, and appear to be an
appropriate increase over previous estimates.[108]
In the
end, Zenz does not even clearly state whether his estimates correspond to the
numbers of detainees at any one time or the sum of all those ever detained.
4 - On the
use of ranges
Zenz
claims a “speculative upper limit estimate of 1.8 million . . . and a new
minimum estimate of 900,000”.[109]
Zenz intends
his estimates to be used for purposes of making decisions, i.e. to affect the
policies of countries toward China to bring about an improvement in the
treatment of Xinjiang’s Muslim minorities.
Decisions
regarding what pressures to apply to China is partly a function of the risks of
relying on Zenz’s estimates.
Whereas an
observer unfamiliar with statistics might think that the likelihood of Zenz’s
estimates being right would go up if their range is widened, the opposite is
true.
Actually,
if there are only two observations and they have an equal probability of
occurrence, then the wider the range of observations, the greater the risk of
reliance on the observations to make a decision.
To use a
simple example:
Case 1:
probability of 0.9 is 50%
probability of 1.8 is 50%
standard deviation (risk of reliance) is 0,5
Case 2:
probability of gaining 0.9 is 50%
probability of gaining 1.2 is 50%
standard deviation (risk of reliance) is 0,37
In other
words, the very width of the range of Zenz’s estimates is a source of risk of
error, a factor decreasing their reliability.
In reality, Zenz’s estimates likely do not
have equal probabilities of being accurate. If the lower one were considered to
have an 80% probability of being accurate and the higher one only a 20% chance,
then his “expected result” should have been 1.08 million people, with a
standard deviation of 0.4, which is an indicator of the high risk of reliance
on Zenz’s estimates.
5. - Conclusion
To excuse
the unreliability of Zenz’s estimates of the number of Muslim minority people
in Xinjiang, some observers have argued that he himself calls them “speculative”. Of course, that appears rather
more to be a euphemism for “guess”.
But, more
importantly, Zenz actually qualifies his estimates as “eminently realistic” and
“appropriate”.
For our
part, we conclude that Zenz estimates of the number of detainees in
“extrajudicial internment” in Xinjiang are unverifiable and unreliable.
That some
observers have qualified his articles as “transparent” or of “academic quality”
is incomprehensible.
Authorities
in the Western World have nevertheless relied on those articles for the
adoption of policy toward China.
That
Muslim-minorities are suffering from a régime that is harsh, and even violative
of Western concepts of “human rights”, is evident from the numerous statements
gathered by many investigators acting in good faith.
The point
of this review has however been to recommend caution before accepting as true
Adrian Zenz’s claims as to the numbers of detainees that are as impressive by
the quantities advanced as they are suspect for want of evidence to support
them.
In the
end, if one were to retain only the number of detainees with respect to which
Zenz has provided third parties, nominally identified in his article, access to
his sources for purposes of inspection, then that number would be the one
advanced by the managers of the Shahit Data Base, namely “3,304”, corresponding to the number of “detained individuals and other victims
parsed out from the large cache of internal documents obtained by scholar
Adrian Zenz”.[110]
Retaining any
number beyond that number requires acts of faith in Zenz’s assertions about the
authenticity of the documents on which he claims to rely without providing
objective evidence, as well as in his accounts of their contents for want of
revealing them in their entirety. Even granting him the benefit of any doubts
in those regards, his estimates are most often extrapolations from very limited
sets of data, such as a handful of individual interviews of mostly unidentified
officials or of victims whose accounts of their treatment could be suspected of
partiality. Furthermore, those extrapolations are riddled with errors of reasoning
and calculation. Even the footnotes often lead to dead links or irrelevant
sources.
Still, the
satellite photo evidence gathered by such organizations as the ASPI does
suggest the existence of large-scale internments. But the ASPI has deliberately
chosen, at least to this date, not to advance numbers of detainees. Though
clearly aware of Zenz’s estimates and his arguments supporting them, the ASPI
has not confirmed them.
In conclusion
then, Zenz’s estimates in his JPR November 2019 article of the number of
detainees in “extrajudicial internment” in Xinjiang are unreliable and should
be not be used as a basis for formulating policies toward China and its treatment
of the Muslim minority populations in that Province.
Section 1 – Methodology :
“The
author’s second data source is a secret, classified government document, dated
November 5, 2017, and issued by the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region’s Party
Political and Legal Affairs Committee (zizhiqu dangwei zhengfawei 自治区党委政法委)
(Figure 6). This classified document was passed to Uyghurs in exile from a
source in Xinjiang, and then directly passed to the author. Its authenticity
has been independently verified by several linguists and Xinjiang experts. Based
on his experience and through comparison with numerous other government
sources, the author likewise considers the language, formatting, and contents
of this document to be indicative of its authenticity.”
The classified document mandates that
every region (prefecture) and county (or city) must establish a “VTIC
leadership small group” (zhiye jineng jiaoyu peixun
lingdao xiaozu 职业技能教育培训领导小组), which is to be headed by the county committee party secretary. It
must also establish an ETB. This means that every single regional
administrative unit at county level and above must establish the administrative
infrastructure for supervising VTIC work. This is consistent with the author’s
previous finding that most of Xinjiang’s regions, including those where the Han
constitute the majority of the population, operate re-education facilities.
That fact therefore represents an important finding for estimating the scale of
the extrajudicial internment campaign.
Related information for lower levels is
difficult to obtain. However, a March 2016 United Front Work Department report
cited above states that in Kashgar City, every township and residential
district had established a “legal school” (fazhi
xuexiao 法制学校), while every village and urban district had set up a “transformation
through education room” (jiaoyu zhuanhua shi 教育转化室). Notably, this was almost one whole year before the
start of the large-scale re-education campaign. Similarly, a 2014 news report
stated that Konashähär (Shufu) County had established a three-tiered
“transformation through education base” (jiaoyu
zhuanhua jidi 教育转化基地) system at county, township and village levels.[64] Some of
these bases were also titled “legal system training schools” (fazhi peixun xuexiao 法制培训学校).