Zheng Guoen talks about China’s “self-inflicted self-inflicted” (photo)

American basketball star – Kanter (Image credit: Public Domain)

[See China January 25, 2022 News]On January 17,ChinaGovernment sports official, former basketball starYao MingInvitation to Strongly Criticize Chinese AbusesXinjiangUyghurs and U.S. basketball stars call for boycott of Beijing Winter OlympicsKanterVisit China to get a “comprehensive understanding” of China.Recently, the Chinese authorities have changed their stance on the Xinjiang issue.war WolfThe switch to a softer diplomatic stance comes against the backdrop of growing testimonies from victims of Chinese authorities’ repression and persecution in Xinjiang, as well as a massive leak of internal Chinese authorities’ documents.

Kanter said on the 19th that he is willing to visit China as long as he can see the “real China” and not be invited to do “propaganda”. In today’s world, one of the leading researchers in the study of China through the internal documents of the Chinese government and its public statements is the German scholar Adrian Zenz.

Kantor and the Western public’s perception of the Xinjiang issue

Boston Celtics center Kanter is from Turkey. In the run-up to the Beijing Winter Olympics, he has repeatedly used social media and interviews with Western news media to speak up for what he sees as the oppressed and persecuted Uighurs, for which he is willing to give up lucrative commercial sponsorships. Kanter’s words and deeds, widely regarded as a demonstration of the plight of Uyghurs and the perception of the Chinese government’s disinformation on Xinjiang, have spread in the public consciousness in Western countries.

Kanter, who also speaks for the Tibetans and Hong Kongers who have been repressed by the Chinese authorities, said in an interview with CNN on the 19th, “I want to say thank you to Mr. Yao Ming… I really want to go to China to see for myself. Everything. I want to ask Mr. Yao Ming, can I go to the labor camp during this visit?…I don’t need to listen to explanations during my visit to China. I don’t want to promote it. The world shows what’s going on.”

When Yao Ming invited Kantor to visit China in a friendly gesture, observers noted that only a few years ago, Chinese government spokespersons and Chinese diplomats in many countries displayed an uncompromising wolf warrior attitude. That wolf-warfare attitude is clearly acting on the orders of Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

In a speech made in 2014, Xi said: “We must hit hard and hit hard,” according to internal documents released earlier by the Uyghur Tribunal, a London-based people’s court. Fighting on a foothold, attacking early and small, digging roots, pulling nails, digging out dens, fighting gangs, chasing fugitives, pulling behind the scenes, chasing, pressing, digging, and fighting, do not give violent terrorists any respite. Don’t be afraid. The hostile forces make irresponsible remarks, and don’t be afraid of the hostile forces smearing Xinjiang’s image. If violent terrorist activities are not eliminated, heaven will not tolerate it! Anyone who makes irresponsible remarks and points must be resolutely pushed back!”

Beijing’s rewording on Xinjiang

However, as international attention to Xinjiang issues intensifies and criticism of the mass incarceration of Uyghurs by Chinese authorities intensifies, as more internal Chinese government documents are leaked to the outside world showing the persecution Chinese authorities are practising in Xinjiang And the scale and intensity of the repression, the Chinese authorities have constantly revised their narratives, from the firm denial of the existence of mass incarceration at the beginning, to the claim that the detention of millions of people is not mass incarceration, but mass vocational training, and then again. It is claimed that the trainees have all completed their studies and graduated and are free to come and go.

Observers believe that former Chinese basketball star Yao Ming invited Celtics center Kanter, a strong critic of China, to visit China in his official capacity as the chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association, partly in order to ease Beijing’s efforts before the Beijing Winter Olympics, and even Eliminating international criticism of China is also part of the change in Chinese authorities’ diplomatic stance on Xinjiang.

The U.S. State Department estimates that as many as 2 million Uighurs and other ethnic minorities have been held in extrajudicial internment camps since 2017, but the Chinese government has repeatedly denied human rights abuses. But as more testimonies emerge from victims of massive human rights violations, as well as a growing number of internal Chinese government documents and so-called internal directives for stability maintenance that feature violations of basic human rights, including directives from Xi Jinping himself The leaks have made it increasingly difficult to maintain denials by the Chinese government.

Zheng Guoen receives special treatment from Beijing

German scholar Zheng Guoen has studied the internal operation of the Chinese government through the internal documents of the Chinese government and the reports of Chinese news media for many years.

From the Beijing government forcing Uyghur women to sterilize and sterilize Uyghurs in order to turn Uyghurs into ethnic minorities in their own homeland, to mass arrest and imprisonment of Uyghurs in the name of maintaining stability and de-radicalization of religions, to the large-scale construction of prisons in Xinjiang, Zheng Guoen has achieved outstanding research results using data from China. This prominence has also been recognized by the Chinese government with Chinese characteristics, which is to put him, a German citizen and a private scholar, on the blacklist of sanctions imposed by the Chinese government.

Zheng Guoen, who was previously entrusted by the Uyghur court to verify, verify and analyze documents from the CCP’s repression in Xinjiang, was interviewed by VOA a few days ago. He talked about his interest in China and the origin of his research on China. He said his research methods, which focus on conducting Chinese studies through material from within the Chinese government, are starting to become more popular as Chinese authorities tighten academic research on scholars in China and abroad.

How to see yourself being punished or honored by China

Q: Like it or not, the Chinese government put you and 8 other Europeans on a sanctions blacklist, making you one of the most famous Chinese researchers in the world today. How did you first start studying China, studying Xinjiang?

A: I became interested in China because China has become an increasingly important and rising power. When I was studying Anthropology at Cambridge University, I developed a strong interest in China’s ethnic policy and minority system, as China has an important minority such as the Tibetans (or Tibetans as many Chinese call them).

The subject of my doctoral research was the educational and ethnic framing of minority Tibetans, including the tangle of ethnic identity and employment. As I developed a systematic understanding of ethnic policies and their relationship to those large minorities, it was natural for me to apply my cognitive framework to Uyghurs. When I was investigating and understanding the Tibetan issue, I began to study and analyze various documents of the Chinese government. Therefore, I have transferred this research method to the Xinjiang issue.

How Religious Belief Relates to Serious Academic Research

Q: The Chinese state media, which is tightly controlled by the CCP, say that your research on Xinjiang is seriously or fatally flawed because you (as a religious person) have a strong religious bias. How do you defend your research, defend yourself?

A: By this logic, then you have to say that anyone with a religious belief cannot do real academic research. This statement is ridiculous, and it is hardly an argument at all. Maybe they are atheists and they think they can make this argument. But even atheists are not neutral. Atheism is not an ideological neutrality. (A claim that others are religious and therefore cannot conduct unbiased research) This statement simply evades the truth.

Research Methods of China Using Internal Government Data

Q: The online encyclopedia Wikipedia has an entry for Adrian Zenz (Zheng Guoen), which says, “Zheng Guoen has never been to China, let alone Xinjiang, and all his research comes from the Internet. information, this (makes him) questionable.” The Chinese Communist Party’s newspaper Global Times said, “Adrian Zenz, a German… traveled to Xinjiang as a tourist in 2007.” You have no chance to go China has been used to sow doubts about your Xinjiang research.

At the same time, the Chinese government has for decades punished foreign scholars who did research that displeased the CCP by denying them permission to go to China to do research. This has led many researchers to avoid research topics that may offend the CCP. Some international scholars on China have complained that China has actually obtained the veto power over many topics in China studies, which has fundamentally damaged the academic integrity of today’s China studies. What do you think of this complaint?

A: The Chinese authorities are self-inflicted. During my Ph.D. I actually spent a lot of time doing field research in Tibet. But today scholars who do China studies, who study Tibet and Xinjiang, realize that the future of their studies of ethnic minorities in China depends on my approach. So several scholars are studying my research method.

This is simply because government documents are pretty much the only real source of information. In addition, interviews with exiles, such as exiled foreign Tibetans and Uyghurs. But you can’t interview these people inside China. Because researchers are either not allowed to enter China, or conducting such interviews within China puts the interviewee at risk.

The Chinese Communist Party, of course, wants to limit this sensitive social science research, and the Chinese authorities do this even to China’s own academics. Previously, Chinese scholars also did some very interesting research. I myself have read and quoted the minority research works done by Chinese scholars. Some of those writings are very interesting. But Chinese authorities have effectively blocked all meaningful research. So in many ways the Chinese authorities are doing their own thing. Now even the news media are imitating my research method, which is to study the documents of the Chinese government.

For the obvious and unfortunate reasons mentioned above, my research methods are widely circulated and popular. This research method is very dangerous for the Chinese government, because what the Chinese government says is not easy to immediately correct or deny the authenticity of its own documents. If anyone finds sensitive material, the Chinese government has a big problem. Chinese authorities have tried to keep quiet about the Xinjiang document leak to avoid attracting more media attention. But the Xinjiang government held a press conference after the documents were leaked, claiming that legal action might be taken against me for slandering.

(Original title: Interview with Scholar Zheng Guoen (2): Talking about China’s “self-inflicted self-inflicted”)

(The article only represents the author’s personal position and opinion)