Adrian Zenz

Adrian Zenz (born 1974) is a German anthropologist. He claims to be an "independent researcher" with a particular interest in China and the Xinjiang region, while notably not speaking a word of Chinese . He was the subject of a Grayzone article in December 2019 which exposed his fraudulent research and hypocritical indignation, which partly led Wikipedia to ban the Grayzone as a source from their whole website .

Religious fundamentalism

A born-again Christian who claims to preach at his local church, Adrian Zenz is a lecturer at the European School of Culture and Theology. This anodyne-sounding campus is actually the German base of Columbia International University, a US-based evangelical Christian seminary which considers the “Bible [to be] the ultimate foundation and the “final truth in every aspect of our lives,” and whose mission is to “educate people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ.” Zenz’s work on China is inspired by this biblical worldview, as he recently explained in an interview with Wall Street Journal. “I feel very clearly led by God to do this,” he said. “I can put it that way. I’m not afraid to say that. With Xinjiang, things really changed. It became like a mission, or a ministry.” Along with his “mission” against China, heavenly guidance has apparently prompted Zenz to denounce homosexuality, gender equality, and the banning of physical punishment against children as threats to Christianity.

In his 2012 book Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation, which he co-authored, Zenz wrote some of the following quotes:

• Through notions of gender equality...the enemy is undermining God’s unique but different role assignments for men and women
• Another important God-given authority structure that Satan is attacking through the postmodern spirit is that of gender authority structures
• true scriptural spanking is loving discipline
• countries are banning all forms of physical punishment of children, the primary scriptural method for instilling respect
• It is very likely that the global persecution of true believers will center on the charge that they promote "intolerant views," especially related to preaching against homosexuality.
• ... anti-discrimination laws put in place throughout the European Union ... forbid employers to discriminate based on gender or sexual orientation. That way, it becomes illegal for churches or Christian organizations to refuse to hire homosexuals into important positions.

Notably, he claims that "God's refining process will wipe out all unbelieving Jews" which raises questions as to probable anti-Semitic views.

In September 2019, Zenz tweeted the following:

Many Germans liked Hitler's control mechanisms. They reduced crime and rid society of unpopular minorities.

To the question "Were Germany’s concentration camps an overreaction to a real problem?".

Imperialist ties

Adrian Zenz has many ties to imperialist organisations, notably being employed as a "senior fellow" by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation as per his own Twitter page.

He is also invited to many different news shows all over the world to share his shoddy research, which solely comes from publicly-available documents published by various PRC agencies. Since Zenz does not speak Chinese, he relies on various unknown sources to translate these documents. None of this is challenged by the news anchors who invite him on set.

Debunked claims

Zenz takes a particular interest against China, claiming that he feels "led by God" in his mission against communism. To that end, he has largely "researched" the re-education initiative by the CPC to combat terrorism and far-right radicalisation in the Xinjiang autonomous region. His work has been examined by less biased researchers who exposed his amateur methods and clearly ulterior motives.

For example, his initial assertion that up to 1.5 million Uyghurs were interned in "concentration camps" came from a pro-Xinjiang separatist group who interviewed 8 people, asking them how many people from their village they thought were in such centres, and averaging the results to the whole population of Xinjiang. This is presented as unquestionable fact by Zenz.

More recently, Zenz has started moving his interests towards the autonomous region of Tibet, claiming that much the same thing is happening in Xinjiang -- Tibetans, he claims, are being arrested en masse and driven to concentration camps where they are forced to work for free, cannot express their culture, and are not allowed to speak their language. Reuters themselves were unable to confirm his claims. What is actually happening is that the CPC, in their decades-long program to eradicate poverty in China, are providing populations in less-developed regions the possibility of working manufacturing jobs which pay more and teach them skills that may be useful on the labour market. Most of the money these workers receive, they send back to their family.