Zenz's most influential work has been his research on the mass detention ofUyghurs and otherTurkic Muslim minorities within China'sXinjiang internment camps.[1] He was one of the first researchers to reveal the existence, size, and scope of these camps.[1][18][19]
Zenz's work on the detention of Uyghurs inXinjiang began in February 2018[1] and has been based on Chinese government budget plans, bidding papers, leaked documents, spreadsheets, and other official documents.[1][20][21][22] In a May 2018 report published by the Washington, D.C.–basedJamestown Foundation, Zenz initially estimated the number of detained Muslims to range from 100,000 to just over 1 million.[1] He based this estimate on documents published by Istiqlal, a Turkey-based Uyghur exile media organization, which had reportedly been leaked by anonymous Chinese public security officials in the region, along with two reports on Muslim detention quotas byShohret Hoshur forRadio Free Asia.[23][24][25][26][27] He then extrapolated from these figures and incorporated information from former detainees and public Chinese government documents that gave indications of the sizes and numbers of the camps.[1][25]
Since then, his estimate has been cited widely, with many sources, including experts ona United Nations human rights panel, preferring to use the higher end of the estimate's range, while other scholars have questioned its accuracy.[1][28] In March 2019, Zenz provided a higher speculative estimate to the United Nations that 1.5 million Uyghurs had been detained in camps, saying that his number accounted for both the increases in the size and scope of detention in the region as well as in public reporting on the stories of Uyghur exiles with relatives in internment camps.[1] In July 2019, Zenz wrote in theJournal of Political Risk that he speculated that 1.5 million Uyghurs had beenextrajudicially detained, which he described as being "an equivalent to just under one in six adult members of a Turkic and predominantly Muslim minority group in Xinjiang".[29] In November 2019, Zenz estimated that the number of internment camps in Xinjiang had surpassed 1,000.[30] In July 2020, he wrote inForeign Policy that his estimate had increased since November 2019, stating that a total of 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities had been extrajudicially detained in what he described as "the largest incarceration of an ethnoreligious minority since the Holocaust" and arguing that the Chinese government was engaging in policies that violated theUnited Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.[31]
Zenz has also researched publicly available Chinese government documents that showed that the Chinese government has spent tens of millions of dollars since 2016 on abirth control surgery program that includes cash incentives for sterilization procedures.[32][33][34] His research has shown that birth control violations are punishable by imprisonment in the Xinjiang camps,[33][34] a conclusion that has been corroborated by anAP investigation, which also found that women in Xinjiang were forcibly sterilized and subjected to forced abortions.[32] According to Zenz, population growth rates in the two largest Uyghur prefectures in Xinjiang,Kashgar andHotan, fell by 84% between 2015 and 2018, due to forced sterilization, contraception, and abortions.[35][36][4]
In June 2021, Zenz published a 28-page study inCentral Asian Survey, arguing that China has carried out population control in Xinjiang with the explicit "long-term" intent to reduce population growth of the Uyghur ethnic minority.[37][38]
Zenz published theXinjiang Police Files, a collection of official police documents he received from anonymous hackers in May 2022.[39][40] The files include instructions on operating the camps, speeches, and thousands ofmug shots taken in 2018.[41][42]
Tibet
Zenz is the author of'Tibetanness' Under Threat?, a 2013 study of the modern Tibetan education system. In the book, he examines the career prospects of students who major in Tibetan-language studies and explores the notion that the greater market value of Chinese-language education threatens Tibetan ethnocultural survival.[5][9]
In September 2020, Zenz authored a report that said that 500,000 Tibetans, mostly subsistence farmers and herders, were trained in the first seven months of 2020 in military-style training centers.[43][44][45][46] According toBBC News, experts have said these centers "are akin tolabour camps".[45]
Theology
Zenz is alapsed Catholic-turned-born-again Christian, and he has stated that he feels "led by God" in his research on Chinese Muslims and other minority groups.[1] He co-authored a book in 2012 with his father-in-law, Marlon L. Sias, titledWorthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation.[1]
Reception
Zenz has been the target of a pro-Beijingdisinformation campaign, according to U.S.-based cybersecurity firmMandiant.[47] A fabricated letter was spread throughfake news sites, alleging that Zenz received direct funding from US government entities.[48][49]
Xinjiang
Zenz's work to expose human rights abuses in Xinjiang has been the subject of widespread international attention and has frequently been cited in media reports.[1][50][51][52][53]
An analysis published by theMercator Institute for China Studies in January 2019 said that estimates by Zenz and others that one million Uyghurs had been subject to extrajudicial detention were "credible but remain unavoidably imprecise" and cited Zenz's 2018 study as one of two important studies that "popularized" this number.[50] His work has been described byFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as delivering solid evidence for the extent of the repression that had only been previously known through anecdotal evidence.[54][need quotation to verify]
As a result of his work on Xinjiang, Zenz has become a target for coordinated disinformation attacks from pro-Beijing and Chinese state-run media as well as other state-affiliated entities.[12][55][56] Zenz and his work on Xinjiang have been criticized by the Chinese government,[52][57][58][59] which, according toThe Globe and Mail, "has called his findings 'lies'—even when it confirmed them".[52] In March 2021, Chinese state media reported that Chinese companies had filed a lawsuit in Xinjiang against Zenz to recoup economic losses and restore their reputations in response to whatChinese Foreign Ministry spokesmanZhao Lijian described as "Zenz's 'rumors' of forced labor in the region".[51] The lawsuit is one in a series of steps that the Chinese government has taken in order to attack critics of its policies in Xinjiang.[52][60][61] On 2 April 2021, a court in Kashgar accepted the civil case brought by a textile company in Xinjiang against Zenz for defamation.[62] During an interview withThe Daily Telegraph, published in May 2021, Zenz defended himself against allegations of fabrication, noting that 95% of documents he had analyzed were publicly available government records. He has become the target of repeated cyber attacks, receiving manyattempted hacking attacks via email from people posing as Uyghurs.[12] In December 2023, theFinancial Times reported that an agent of theZhejiang branch of theMinistry of State Security had been tasked with discrediting Zenz.[63]
The European Union, United States, United Kingdom, and Canada imposed coordinated sanctions against Chinese government officials over human rights abuses in Xinjiang in March 2021.[64][65] The US banned imports ofcotton from Xinjiang shortly after Zenz published a report describing widespread use of forced labor in the region.[52] The Chinese government responded by imposing retaliatory sanctions against Zenz and others who had criticized it for its human rights abuses in Xinjiang, including nine other people (five of whom are members of theEuropean Parliament), twoEuropean Union bodies, the Mercator Institute for China Studies, and theAlliance of Democracies Foundation.[53][65] The sanctions against Zenz prohibit him from entering the China and restrict his ability to do business with Chinese firms.[53][65]
Tibet
A 2019 article inFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described Zenz's research methods on Tibetans as unconventional and exciting little interest in the professional world. It stated that Zenz had analyzed job postings for security personnel in Tibet, compared them with data on self-immolation by Tibetans, and then used that data to draw his conclusions about the Chinese government's policies of repression.[54] Development studies researcher Andrew Fischer described Zenz's early work as an "excellent discussion" of Tibetan education that included "interesting ways of measuring and representing" school outcomes[66] and as offering a "rare insight" into Tibetan education with "fascinating" details and of "immense value".[67]
In 2020, a report fromReuters wrote that the news agency had "corroborated Zenz's findings and found additional policy documents, company reports, procurement filings and state media reports" regarding a growing mass labor program in Tibet.[44][45][46] The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in response that work was voluntary and strongly denied the involvement of forced labor.[44][46]
Robert Barnett, the former director of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program atColumbia University, wrote in March 2021 that Zenz's work on Tibet is generally "well-regarded" and noted that Zenz had been subject to unfair and abusive attacks from Chinese state media.[68] Barnett, however, criticized the methods used in creating a report written by Zenz and published in September 2020 by the Jamestown Foundation, writing that it had not been peer-reviewed prior to publication, did not refer to the findings of other Tibet researchers, and had not been independently verified by field research.[68] He also criticized the timing of and media coverage surrounding the report's publication, arguing that it had been "coordinated with a prominent media campaign" and that notable newspapers had misrepresented the report by overstating Zenz's conclusions regarding the existence of labor camps in Tibet.[68]
Criticism
In a guest commentary inDer Tagesspiegel on 19 February 2020,Mechthild Leutner,emeritus sinologist at theFree University of Berlin and former director of the state-run ChineseConfucius Institute in Berlin, criticized the fact that personalities such as Zenz, who are associated with "fringe evangelical educational institutions", are frequently quoted in the media instead of actualsinologists.[69] According to Leutner, this leads to a lack of differentiated analyses of China in the media.[69] In her statement to the committee, the script of which she did not release for publication, Leutner, who was invited by the parliamentary group Die Linke as an expert to the 66th session of theCommittee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid in theBundestag in November 2011, classified the internment camps in Xinjiang as part of the "preventive measures against extremism", along with programmes "to combat poverty", "for professional qualification", and "to create jobs". These measures supposedly also included the establishment of "centres" for people who were demonstrably involved in "terrorist", "separatist", or "religious" activities. Leutner used the Chinese state term "vocational training centres" for some of the internment camps and described them in her own words as "deradicalisation centres",[70][71] which were "created in 2017 and 2018" and "dissolved again in 2019".[71]
In an amendment tabled byClare Daly andMick Wallace of theGUE/NGL group in theEuropean Parliament on 16 December 2020, they mentioned Zenz in connection with his work on allegations of forced labor by Uyghurs, stating that he had described himself as "guided by God" and on a "mission". Daly and Wallace wrote that Zenz is "an evangelical Christian fundamentalist", and they described reports by theAustralian Strategic Policy Institute and theCenter for Strategic and International Studies dealing with the issue of forced labor by Uyghurs as "baseless".[72] In another amendment, they called on "the EU and the Member States not to wage a cold war against China".[73] These amendments were not included in the adopted version of the EU Parliament's joint resolution of 17 December 2020, on forced labor and the situation of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Instead, paragraph 1 of the resolution "strongly condemned the state system of forced labour exploiting in particular Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs and Kyrgyz and other Muslim minorities in factories in Xinjiang, both inside and outside detention camps".[74]
In an article published inDie Tageszeitung on 23 September 2020, China correspondent Fabian Kretschmer described Zenz as "controversial", since the Chinese state media accused him of having a "radical evangelical background", and he criticized Zenz for not having visited China in over ten years. According to Kretschmer, the fact that Zenz works for the right-wing conservative think tankVictims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which has "close ties to theCIA", also casts him in a "dubious light". He has, however, stated that Zenz's research is primarily based on publicly available documents and social media publications by Chinese authorities and local governments that originate directly from the Chinese state, and that his work remains "scientifically tenable", even if it is "instrumentalised by the US government for its harsh anti-China policy".[75] When asked about Zenz in his role as "the Western media's most important source for the accusations against the Chinese government" and his claims of "a demographic genocide campaign", sinologistBjörn Alpermann ofJulius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg explained in a 2022 interview with the weeklyJungleworld that it is not necessary to "sympathise with Adrian Zenz as a person or approve of the political agenda of his donors to come to the conclusion that birth control in Xinjiang has been tightened".[76]
InNeues Deutschland,Uwe Behrens described a report published in March 2021 by theNewlines Institute for Strategy and Policy as a "string of unverified secondary information and statements by Uyghurs living abroad", which was "ultimately based on the internet research of anthropologist Adrian Zenz".[77]
In 2023, political theorists Alain Brossat and Juan Alberto Ruiz Casado described Zenz as "instrumental" in the process that renamed China's campaign in Xinjiang from "mass arbitrary detentions and related violations" to "genocide".[78] They described the arguments in his 2018 work as "academically flimsy" and criticized his 2019 work for containing misleading or directly false claims.[78]
Selected works
with Sias, Marlon L. (5 November 2012).Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be raptured Before the Tribulation. Bloomington, Indiana: Author.ISBN978-144976908-6.OCLC817597374.
^"Graduate Search".graduatesearch.auckland.ac.nz. Retrieved29 October 2025.
^abZenz, Adrian (2013).'Tibetanness' Under Threat?: Neo-Integrationism, Minority Education and Career Strategies in Qinghai, P.R. China. Global Oriental.ISBN978-9004257962.
^U.S. Congress, Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and Nonproliferation,Hearing: Authoritarianism with Chinese Characteristics: Political and Religious Human Rights Challenges in China, "Witness BiographyArchived May 25, 2022, at theWayback Machine", 4 December 2019.
^National Cable Satellite Corporation."Adrian Zenz".C-SPAN.Archived from the original on 28 April 2021. Retrieved24 March 2021.
^"Studien- und Weiterbildungsangebote" [Study and further education offers] (in German). Arbeitsgemeinschaft evangelikaler Missionen e.V. 9 August 2017.Archived from the original on 4 March 2021. Retrieved24 March 2021.
^"ウイグル絶望収容所の収監者数は89万人以上" [Uighur Despair Camp has more than 890,000 inmates].Newsweek日本版 (in Japanese). 13 March 2018.Archived from the original on 27 September 2020. Retrieved6 April 2021.
^Cheung, Rachel; Wilhelm, Benjamin (31 March 2021)."China Lashes Out to Silence Its Xinjiang Critics".World Politics Review.Archived from the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved5 April 2021.The Chinese government has long denied any human rights abuses in Xinjiang province, even as an increasing number of reports shed light on its brutal repression of mostly Muslim Uyghurs there. But in the face of mounting international pressure and now sanctions, Beijing is going on the offensive to silence critics of all stripes.
^abMechthild Leutner (19 February 2020)."Falsches Feindbild China".Der Tagesspiegel.Archived from the original on 24 May 2022. Retrieved9 February 2021.
