Month: August 2021

Categories
Anti-China Narratives Modes of propaganda Western media bias against China

Paid to demonise – the ABC (Part 3)

In part 2 of this series, I demonstrated how ABC journalist Beverley O’Connor led Adam Turan through an anti-China narrative, demonstrating no inclination to challenge that narrative. In fact, she ‘led the witness’, posing questions such as “So in your mind this is ethnic cleansing?”

Determining exactly what drives the anti-China culture of the ABC is not simple, but analysing the outcomes in terms of reporting is straight forward. Therefore, the ABC’s complete lack of self-awareness is puzzling (but not surprising).

In this part I examine, in parallel, an analysis of some recent stories which give a clear picture of the blatant framing of China in negative terms.

Don’t talk about the war, except when it’s China

We begin with two stories from fairly recently, where authorities have moved against large tech companies to try to rein in their power and influence. The stories are:

China’s crackdown on ‘powerful’ tech giants may be a ‘terrible own goal’

and

ACCC vows to pursue Google’s ad dominance, as tech giant threatens to remove its search engine from Australia

The negative theme of the China story is there, right off the bat. China has stupidly shot itself in the foot. On the other hand, our saviour, the ACCC is keeping us safe from those giants who wish to tread all over us.

Let’s look to how the language generates the negative perspective on China. Here’s a breakdown of the negative language in the article (yes, there is positive language as well, but for the sake of brevity and contrast, we will look first at negatives)

Frequent words

regulation / regulatory / regulator 10 crackdown 8
competition / competitive 7 risk 7
power 4 complacent 3
impose 3 anti-competitive 2
banned / banning 2 CCP 2
control 2 crack 2
fire 2 penalised / penalty 2
plunged 2 rival 2
tank 2 warned 2

Note the language of oppression in purple. Remember, the topic here is a state that is exercising its right to regulate the practice of tech giants. Note that the topic itself attracts a relatively high 7 instances, as might be expected.

I wonder, when we turn to the ACCC story, whether this kind of language will be apparent. Well, no.

pay 7 journalism 5
power 5 competition / competitors 4
free 4 force 3
push 3 threat 3
argue 2 critics 2
endanger 2 protectionism 2

Here we have some evocative language, but little reference to oppression. Instead we have “concerns”, “unreasonable” or “one-sided”. “Regulate” (and its derivatives) goes from 10 instances (China story) to one. Conflict is “argue” or “threat”.

Less frequent words

Try picking which of these is about China?

wiped, worse, accused, activists, addictive, advantage, alleged, allowed, alternative, attack, battle, blistering, blocked, casualty, caught, causing, collapse, compliance / comply, controversial, copped / copping, debacle, delay, dissenting, eliminating, enemy, exposure, forced, foreign, illegally, implement, inequality, infuriated, litigious, meltdown, mistake, monopolistic, oligarch, punished, pushed, retribution, shock, shot, submissive, surged, surrender, suspected, suspended, takeover, tensions, terrible, unpredictability warn, absurd, compensation, concerns, confront, defender, demands, disrupt, dominance, fires, floodgates, idiocy, mandatory, misuse, one-sided, regulation, strike, unreasonable, watchdog

One person’s free expression is another’s aggression

To be sure, this is an isolated instance. Really? Let’s look at another set of stories, about controversial Chinese artists.

Australian artist Badiucao’s exhibition finally shown in Melbourne after China ‘threat’ ordeal – ABC News Chinese artist behind doctored image of Australian soldier says he’s ready to make more – ABC News
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-27/badiucao-new-melbourne-exhibition-street-art-festival/11995456 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-01/doctored-image-of-australian-soldier-tweeted-by-chinese-diplomat/12938244
In 2019, Badiucao was awarded the Robert Russell Courage in Cartooning Award by the Cartoonists Rights Network International. The Chinese artist behind a doctored image of an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of an Afghan child has taunted the Australian Prime Minister, saying that he would make another artwork in response to being “scolded”.
This month, the art of Chinese dissident Badiucao has finally seen the light of day in Melbourne — more than a year after the Australian artist’s Hong Kong exhibition was cancelled due to threats reportedly made by Chinese authorities. Prime Minister Scott Morrison labelled the post “repugnant“, demanding it be removed and Beijing issue an apology.
Originally titled Gongle, the exhibition was supposed to be the kick-off event for Freedom of Expression Week in 2018, organised by the Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP), Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders. The image — created to criticise Australia over the damning Brereton war crimes inquiry — was posted on Twitter by China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on Monday.
Now retitled Made in Hong Kong, Banned in China, the exhibition features 19 works and sits at the entrance of The Facility in Kensington, where 150 street artists have taken over the three-storey, red brick warehouse and a 22-wagon freight train as part of Melbourne’s inaugural 10-day urban art festival Can’t Do Tomorrow. Mr Fu’s artwork has echoed China’s aggressive diplomacy style in recent years.
Art for the voiceless
 Mr Fu has called himself a “wolf-warrior artist”, echoing China’s aggressive diplomacy style in recent years.
His portraits memorialise dissident figures and defenders of human rights, and his withering satirical cartoons lampoon Chinese leaders for censorship, rights violations and abuse of power, rendering an Orwellian portrait of life under the Communist Party regime. The ABC has approached Mr Fu for comment.
Badiucao is prolific, responding to global political affairs with his pen without missing a beat. His posts on Monday received over 1 million views on Weibo, and his followers doubled to 1 million in two days.
Badiucao’s signature bold woodcut aesthetic references Communist propaganda art, but in fact owes a debt to German expressionist artist Käthe Kollwitz, known for her portrayal of the downtrodden, including peasants and working class people affected by poverty and hunger during wartime. Mr Fu created the controversial computer graphic on the evening of November 22, according to China’s state-owned media Global Times.
IBadiucao says that in the 30s, writer Lu Xun (considered the father of modern Chinese literature) introduced Kollwitz’s work to a group of Chinese left-wing artists who believed “art should serve society” and be a “form of expression for the voiceless” — sentiments the artist feels were lost when the Chinese Communist Party came into power in 1949. He said he had a sense of “fury and trembling” after reading news articles about Australian soldiers’ “brutal killing of 39 civilians” in Afghanistan, including an unsubstantiated account that described how “soldiers cut the throat of two 14-year-old Afghan teenagers with knives”.

This table, summarising only part of the articles, speaks for itself. Clearly this breath-taking double standard does not trouble Ita Buttrose or Gaven Morris, always happy to defend the indefensible.

Consequences for Australia

In cultivating this culture of smearing China, the ABC is exacerbating the difficulties in the Australia – China relationship. If this was simply a matter of disagreement, then it might not matter to Australians. But currently, jobs and livelihoods are being lost as the tit-for-tat conflict continues.

Categories
Anti-China Narratives Modes of addressing sources Modes of propaganda Western media bias against China

Mechanisms of hate and propaganda – the ABC (Part 2)

Last month, I exposed three layers of bias that demonstrated the deep seated anti-China culture permeating the ABC. A simple search showed how the ABC inevitably takes an anti-China posture in on-line news stories. The same can easily be demonstrated on their YouTube channel. Although the ABC continues to deny this, it is so easy to demonstrate that one wonders whether they actually care about balance any more.

A deeper dive into a podcast story showed a willingness to support a conspiracy theory thoroughly debunked, over and over again, by experts. Once again, the statistics don’t lie. The number of words supporting the anti-China narrative as a ratio to those countering the narrative was a massive 100:1. Not to mention the framing with a sinister photo.

A further, even more forensic analysis of a 4Corners program on China indicated the depths to which the ABC has sunk in terms of fairness in reporting. Not only was 4Corners highly selective in sources, framed the entire story to evoke sympathy for Australians, but it also ignored oceans of context that could be brought to bear on any of the points being made.

Of course, maybe no-one really gives a shit. Maybe Australians just want a dishonest broadcaster. That would be fine, except that disinformation actually hurts Australia’s prosperity and may ultimately lead to Australia sinking into irrelevancy.

I guess, in the end, I care too much about Australia to let that happen.

But, in this article, I am going to analyse the mechanism by which the players in anti-China, including the ABC, conspire to make you believe that China is really, really bad.

Leading the witness

Beverley O’Connor can be said to have ‘form’ when it comes to China. She has had long interviews with several key anti-China players, such as Adrian Zenz. In her interview with Zenz, she essentially allowed Zenz to speak minutes on end with no challenge. Certainly, there were no tough questions.

O’Connor outdid herself in an interview with Adam Turan. Normally, journalists would maintain a kind of plausible deniability (the art of distancing yourself from a source so you can later deny you said such and such – “they said it, not me”)

But, oddly, C’Connor engages in what is called in TV court drama “leading the witness”. It’s obvious and should be embarrassing.

Turan is giving what might be titled ‘testimony’ about the experience in internment of his relatives. He brings to the narrative a ‘before and after’ set of photos. Now, such click-bait tactics should be enough to alert an astute journalist and a critical reader to this tactic. How many before and after photos have we seen in propaganda rags, carefully selected to give a sense of a ‘great fall’ in the fortunes of a celebrity?

Despite this amateurish technique by Turan, O’Connor leads Turan with “Is there any doubt in your mind that he died as a result of what happened in those camps?”

Now, keep in mind that Turan DID NOT OFFER this reason. He simply said, “There’s a big difference between two yeah and there we see that picture, he was released and then it wasn’t long after that before he passed away.” There are any number of reasons for Turan’s father’s death, but none are offered. Instead, O’Connor leads us to a proposition that internment killed Turan’s father.

Even when O’Connor asks about possible terror activities, it is she, not Turan, who rephrases Turan’s words to give a benign take on his family’s activities.

Turan

From my parents raised four of us we went to Uni, started in the university in Xinjiang is Turkestan and all of us work for the government sectors so we never been involved any terrorist activities.

O’Connor

Just going about your lives like ordinary citizen.

So, no question about ETIM? “Were you ever part of ETIM?” “Did you ever produce or pass on radicalisation materials from ETIM?” “Did any of your family ever train outside China with the ETIM?”

No real questions. Just a continuation of the narrative.

But O’Connor really outdoes herself. Not content to write Turan’s narrative for him, she now calls on a conspiracy theory to enhance the impact.

Turan

… that was my last don’t call me again because I won’t be able to pick up your phone and she said I’m at the, she didn’t say police station, but she said a local council office too. The very helpful young guys like you helping me so assisting me teaching me not to pick up the calls from overseas.

O’Connor

Was it almost like a coded message to you?

Right, so the helpful advice from the guy at the local council (not police – Turan’s words) becomes a “coded message”? What next Beverley? Well, let’s go for “ethnic cleansing”.

Turan

It could be jailed, could be sent to the internment camps. That’s some one of these reasons that China is excusing, you know if you have family members overseas or if you contact if you contact with the people from overseas will be jailed. So they could be jailed. So that’s why they can’t directly contact with them.

O’Connor

Do you see what is happening there is some form of ethnic cleansing?

Did you see that? Internment and jailing = ethnic cleansing.

Now, Turan, as a non-native speaker, might be excused for not quite taking on the connotations of “ethnic cleansing”. The slaughter in Rwanda comes to mind. This is where O’Connor is leading the audience. The horrors of the realities of “ethnic cleansing”.

But, sadly for O’Connor, Turan is a little less sensationalist than she might have hoped for. He moderates this to “cultural genocide”. But there’s no holding back O’Connor in ‘leading the witness’.

“So they’ve separated them from their families and they want to re-educate them to be Han Chinese?” Yes, it’s this little gem. Create a category ‘Han’ to represent all other Chinese people and then accuse China of trying to turn everyone into a Han? What does this even mean? It’s sufficiently vague to be a coverall for any activity that Beijing might do that has a cultural component. I mean, China can build a high speed railway to Xinjiang and the reason can be “Well, that just means Han Chinese can get to Xinjiang more readily and dilute the local population.”

When Turan makes the absolutely laughable claim that the Xinjiang is “The worst human rights violations in human history” O’Connor just let’s that sit, unchallenged. So, Beverley, none of these well documented and verified atrocities came to mind – The Holocaust, Nazi genocide of ethnic Poles, Cambodia, Armenian genocide, Rwandan genocide, Dzungar genocide, Genocide in Bangladesh, Massacres of Hutus during the First Congo War, Romani genocide, Darfur genocide, Bosnia, Queensland Aboriginal genocide, Canadian native children genocide, Rohingyas, Haiti, genocide of Aboriginal Tasmanians?

Sadly, neither O’Connor nor the ABC seem able to reach a level of slef-reflection to recognise both their active part in generating anti-China sentiment and developing consent for conflict with China. The only loser in this is Australia.

Categories
Anti-China Narratives Modes of addressing sources Modes of propaganda Western media bias against China

The anatomy of deceit

Turan

I don’t know Adam Turan. He’s probably a nice guy. He probably does very ordinary things like the rest of us. What troubles me is the message he peddles.

Try this one, for example. It’s fairly characteristic of his consistent support for an independent state in Xinjiang.

Now, note the question marks. These are not questions for which he is polling Twitter for responses. They are rhetorical. The answer is both in the question and in the retweet.

Turan is is employing a propaganda technique called plausible deniability. He can say, “Well, I was just quoting Roth, that well known boss of HRW. How was I to know that the statistics were dodgy?”

Plausible deniability requires that the information be plausible. Of course, the numbers quoted in Roth’s tweet are accurate. So, there’s the plausibility. Except that, without context, these numbers are completely deceitful.

Is this Turan’s intention or is he just happy to retweet misinformation without fact checking? I don’t know. It could be just confirmation bias. The numbers ‘sound’ like they support his ETIM inspired narrative.

I suspect Turan doesn’t care whether the numbers are in context, so long as they have propaganda value. I suspect that he knows that most readers will simply not dig deep to find the truth. They will take the numbers on face value and make the completely absurd, conspiratorial link to Xi Jinping.

Roth

Like Turan, Roth deploys the plausible deniability technique as well. After all, it wasn’t him, but a ‘reputable’ journal that makes this claim. Roth seems to think that presenting facts so they are deceitful is fine. Does make you wonder whether this is also applied to the reports from the organisation he heads. Balance, fairness, integrity of sources? Who gives a shit?

The quote comes from this source:

Between 2012 and 2020 the annual number of asylum-seekers from China rose from 15,362 to 107,864, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. This increase has coincided with the rule of Xi Jinping. (The Economist)

Roth has deniability by retweeting the Economist, and plausibility because he knows the numbers are right – or at least, a quick check of the UNHCR proves it correct. But one element of the story is complete conjecture and Roth almost certainly knows that – the connection with Xi.

Sure, the word used is “coincided”. There you go. Deniability again. “I didn’t say Xi caused it.” But, as every media expert will tell you, simply juxtaposing two unrelated items creates a connection in over-active, pattern seeking human brains.

As Sapolsky so aptly illustrates in Behave: The Best and Worst of Us, “Was that a gun or a phone in that man’s hand when I shot him dead? In the moment, I simply reacted.” Here’s the thing. The associations the brain makes happen in the first second. It takes no time at all for any human brain to create a straight line between asylum seeking skyrocketing and Xi, regardless of the clever use of “coinciding”. After that, it’s a lot of effort for the frontal cortex to undo that connection. We are, literally, wired for associations, many completely unjustified and irrational.

Given Roth’s oversight of reports that roundly condemn China, this straight line suits him just fine. Why question this when you have plausible deniability?

Note how closely to follows this article:

According to UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) figures, the annual number of asylum seekers from China increased from 15,362 to 107,864 between 2012 and 2020. 613,000 Chinese people have applied for asylum in another country since Xi Jinping gained power at the end of 2012.

You see. It wasn’t me who said it. It was Wion. No need to check it out, to see if it is in any way deceitful.

What actually is the situation? Here’s the UNHCR’s take.

68% originate from just five countries.

 

More than two thirds of all refugees under UNHCR’s mandate and Venezuelans displaced abroad come from just five countries (as of end-2020).

 

Syrian Arab Republic 6.7 million
Venezuela 4.0 million
Afghanistan 2.6 million
South Sudan 2.2 million
Myanmar 1.1 million

(UNHCR statistics)

I guess, like me, you’re wondering why there’s no mention of China. Oops, how embarrassing for the Economist, who didn’t check sources. How awkward for Roth, who didn’t bother to put up the figures in context. How painful for Turan, when his narrative is blown out of the water.

The smear against Xi is the real point for Turan, Roth, The Economist and Wion. How does their little accusation stack up? Sadly, it’s bullshit.

Sorry, but this graph, straight out of the UNHCR database, while affirming the asylum numbers given for plausible deniability, actually shows China, in 2013, at Xi’s ascendency, from a base of about 2.5% of the world’s asylum seekers (about 25000 of 1000000), stay on trend with 2.5% in 2020 (100000 of 4000000). More telling, refugee numbers have pretty much stayed constant since Xi took power.

Indeed, the rise is asylum-seekers globally is dramatic. And troubling. And a cause for concern. Nobody is going to deny that. But when you find this same trend across country after country, an intelligent person says, “This is a trend beyond China. It has nothing to do with Xi.”

To illustrate this, take the data for Germany. Look at that. Almost identical trend. So, tell me, can we attribute this to Xi?

But, if you really want to be fair, 0.007% of China’s population (yes, across the whole country) applied for asylum elsewhere. No, the idea that there is a great rush of discontented people out of China is just bullshit. At most, it’s a trickle. Maybe not a figure China wants to boast about, but also not a figure that makes China really stand out. The data says so. The UNHCR has identified the top spots for discontent. You don’t get to simply pluck those figures out of their website and then make up a narrative to suit.

And data without a context is just lies – a deliberate choice to deceive. It doesn’t reflect on the data – it reflects on the author and the ‘retweeter’. It’s their integrity which we need to doubt.

So, if you want to draw a line between Xi and asylum seekers, take one of these two roads – make it fair, in which case you find Xi has no case to answer, especially in Xinjiang (for which there are no statistics) and that the numbers, while not wonderful, are, in context, entirely unremarkable.

Or, take the road of plausible deniability and construct a deceitful picture in which a coincidence becomes a cause, and an opportunity to smear.

I think you can see which road Turan, Roth, The Economist and Wion took.

Categories
Anti-China Narratives

4 stages of a man on the left

Clive Hamilton is not much older than me. I daresay much of his early experiences were similar to my own. I’ve read his pieces, off and on, for years and largely nodded in approval. But we have parted ways in a gradual way that feels inevitable.

My ‘birth’ into the left began when my conservative, fundamentalist Christian father declared me a “communist”. As I encountered the world, conservative values simply didn’t wash. Black people weren’t lazy good for nothings, Catholics weren’t Satan’s agents, hard work didn’t lead automatically to prosperity, the working class weren’t dirty …

My rejection signalled the first stage of going left – disillusionment. I’m sure, from my readings, that Clive went through this stage. The dig it or burn it mentality of prosperity in Australia was brilliant at making money for some, but completely nonsensical if you looked past the coming millennium click over. Clive and I were at one.

Soon after school and a short stint working, I graduated to the second stage of the left – idealism. I looked around the world for evidence of new ways of organising society and stumbled across kibbutzim. Blind to the multiple evils of Zionism, I ventured across the world to join ‘volunteers’ in a socialist experiment.

Nothing cures rabid Zionism like the crunching reality of the Zionist experiment Israel. But that is a story for another day. I lived for half a year in a socialist paradise. No money, no gender roles, no fixed job, no bosses, no private property. Well, almost. There were the JAPS – Jewish American Princes or Jewish American Princesses. Marking their good Zionist allegiances, Jewish kids from New York could do a stint in a kibbutz, avoid national service and avoid work of any kind.

I once confronted the work coordinator of the kibbutz – a large, red headed sabra – with the fact that a newly arrived ‘prince’ seemed to spend his days by the pool and his nights rooting the prettiest of the locals and didn’t seem to join in the work. Why was that?

Apart from nearly being shot up on the Gaza strip, I believe that might have been a moment when I came closest to death. My naïve left-wing idealism came to the fore and collided with the grim, material reality of the manner in which the Zionist state was being sustained.

No doubt, Clive is an idealist. He still thinks there is hope for the West. He still thinks Australian politics is redeemable. He still thinks we live in a democracy. He still thinks climate change is reversible.

The third stage of the left is activism. I think Clive was way better at this. I didn’t like the idea of being arrested, so actually chaining myself to anything seems a bit too uncomfortable. I’m not exactly sure what Clive has done in this stage, but he is almost certainly ahead of me.

The last stage is materialism. As you grow older on the left, you realise that your individual actions and activism is impotent against large structural inequalities that are driven by forces well beyond political parties. You understand that change is inevitable and often brutal.

Sadly, some left leaning types, like Clive, never reach the materialist stage. They drift into ideological oblivion and begin to whine about things that they really don’t know anything about. Their ‘left’ ideas become increasingly abstracted from reality, but they imagine themselves at the cutting edge of a youthful idealistic movement.

I’ll leave you with one of Clive’s ideological treasures. I mean, it’s completely unremarkable given his passage into the “I write anti-China books” club.

I’m sorry I can’t play that music from X-files due to copyright restrictions.

It’s kind of sad to see an old man sink into conspiracy land. I wonder if, one day, Clive might get to stage 4.

Categories
Anti-China Narratives Genocide

Is Gabby Deutch a complete arsehole?

I am one of a few people who I know of who has spoken with both a Hitler Youth member and a Holocaust survivor. Admittedly, I don’t speak fluent enough German to have readily understood either, but, fortunately I had German translators in both instance.

I’m going to call the two people Harry and Maria. That’s not their names, but I’m not going to name them because they both have children who are alive and neither of them are alive.

I spoke with Harry in 1980. My translator, Friedlinde, was very embarrassed, because Harry was still fervently that young man, praising Hitler and the great good he had done for Germany. He wouldn’t hear of anything about the Holocaust. For him, his childhood memories were a great leader who had removed the ‘stains’ from Germany. He didn’t mention Jews. For him, the homosexuals were the worst.

In those formative years, Harry’s collapsing world meant that he needed something to believe in – an identity. It never went away. The thorough radicalisation of his youth was powerful even into his eighties. That’s how radicalisation works. If you are not convinced, read the chapter on the adolescent brain in Robert Sapolsky’s Behaviour – The Best and Worst of Us.

Maria’s story is fascinating. In a kibbutz (which, again I will not name, as it will be too easy to identify her) where I spent 6 months, Maria, with a tattooed forearm, spoke little Hebrew, much to the chagrin of the sabra Israelis around her. Instead, she sought out the Germans who were there, like me, as ‘volunteers’. She would speak German and she would look happy.

It was hard to get an exact account of how Maria’s experience of the holocaust had been, but, as much as I could ascertain from speaking to the Germans she befriended, Maria had grown up as a secular Jew, as German as any ‘aryan’. Speaking German with the German volunteers felt like her childhood, blissfully unaware of the nightmare about to descend. All her schoolfriends were German. She did not live in a Jewish ghetto. She was a normal German girl.

The experiences of these two people have moved me greatly in my life. As did the hours I spent in Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. Although I did not live through it, I believe I have a deeper sense than most about how it was. In my early years as a history teacher I built a Yad Vashem museum in my classroom. One of the experiences I gave my students was walking through a weaving corridor of horror – about 50 metres of graphic material.

Deutch has the shrink-wrapped version of history, a pocket narrative that is brought out when she wants to prove her Jewishness.

Deutch starts with

“1936 Summer Games, the final runner in the torch relay arrived in Berlin with the Olympic flame. The man, wearing an all-white running ensemble, stood next to dozens of Nazi soldiers in dark uniforms and leather boots. They stood among hundreds of athletes, surrounded by massive Nazi flags adorned with swastikas.”

Really? Is she so ignorant of history that she thinks flag waving and smart uniforms were an indicator of genocide? How sad for her.

When did the brown shirts form? Well, that was 16 years earlier in 1920. They were visible in the streets in the 1920s. In the 1930s, racist slogans were appearing. By 1937, “Juden sind heir nicht unerwunscht” signs were common place. By 1940, “Ewige Jude” was a documentary shown in cinemas.

Are we to imagine that the ‘take away’ from the Holocaust is that we see the signs in the ceremonies and that’s a good indication of a coming holocaust. Is that how shallow Deutch’s understanding is of the 3rd Reich, the democratic election of Hitler, the gamble by the conservatives with unrest between left and right?

Yes, that’s how modern ‘journalism’ works. You take the obvious and you make a story, you create a narrative. You make a false equivalence on the most superficial of elements. And you dishonor those who have suffered, since you have suffered none of it.

“After the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games came to an end last week, a number of Jewish organizations in the U.S. and abroad are again seeking to call attention to another Olympic Games hosted by a country widely known for human rights violations.”

OK. Since you are set on dishonoring the victims of the Holocaust, let me ask you a few questions, Deutch.

Have you met a Holocaust survivor?
Have you visited Yad Vashem?
What are 3 things you would say clearly indicate genocide?
Do you know any of the history of the 3rd Reich?
Where are the points of comparison?
Nazis were not the dominant political power when racist attacks began, so where’s the equivalence?
Where are the brown shirts in Xinjiang?
Krystalnacht? Can you give me an example of this occurring in China?
Ewige Juden. Please link to the Chinese government video portraying Uyghurs as savages.
Where were the Jewish terrorists? What was the equivalent of the ETIM? What separate state were they forming in Germany?
Did Jews in Germany go to a foreign country to fight for Judaism?
What was the name of the Jewish separatist movement in Germany?
Where are the mass graves in Xinjiang?
Where is the anti-Uyghur slogans / signs?
Where are the gas chambers?
Where are the camps that people go into and never come out?
Where are the emaciated people?
In the 3rd Reich – where are the street signs in Hebrew?

Deutch. Don’t imagine yourself Jewish. Don’t imagine yourself to have any understanding of genocide. You are a loathsome creature using the world’s greatest crime to make a political point about China.

Categories
Deradicalisation

Beyond deradicalisation centres – Beijing takes a wholistic and rational approach to poverty alleviation – Part 2

Terror, religion and fascist ideologies

In the previous part of this 6-part series, I discussed the religious context in which Zenz and I grew up. Clearly, Zenz is still trapped within this context, whereas I made a break from this in my late teens, as did so many of my fellow religious travellers.

It would be easy to simply dismiss religion as inherently fascist and thus the enemy of any socialist, communist or collectivist movement. But this flies in the face of what is demonstrably true – that most people have religious practice as a kind of conventional behaviour not entirely different to how they choose to eat or engage in singing and dancing.

Religion is demonstrably a cultural artefact. It both informs cultural expression and is modified by it. In general, it is benign and pedestrian. But, at times, where political aspirations and exclusivity become its aim, religion takes on a markedly fascist flavour.

I wanted to understand how being Muslim in an Muslim majority Asian country might be like. This is important to gauge whether the influence of Wahhabism had some impact on Xinjiang and the unrest that eventually forced China into a de-radicalisation program after terror attacks.

An interview with K

For this series, I interviewed a native Indonesian from Java, a woman in her 50s who I will call K (to preserve her privacy). K grew up in a Muslim family and converted to Christianity in her early adulthood. She describes her religion, and its Indonesian expression as “moderate”. Growing up Muslim did not really seem extraordinary to her – she did feel there were obligations, but largely, in her view, Indonesians Muslims are free to express their Islamic faith as they see fit. Men have more obligations than women, especially in regard to mosque attendance and observance of various festivals, such as Ramadan.

In her culture, K did not really feel any ‘pressure’ from outside her family for ‘compliance’. She and her parents and siblings discussed issues but nobody felt forced to act in any particular way. Her faith was almost entirely conventional, rather than ideological. Her conversion to Christianity did not draw criticism from her family or community.

K was aware that Indonesian Islamic practices were quite separate from other expressions, in nearby Malaysia and the more distant Middle East Arabic countries. By and large, differences in practice were considered part of the Indonesian (or Javanese) tradition. Even then, the practices across various kinds of Islam were also varied, but considered as normal.

The emergence of the oil rich Arab countries towards the end of last century created some noticeable effects in Indonesian society. Arab countries had a new set of rich who looked for domestic employees or cheap labour. As citizens of a nation still developing, many Indonesians, especially those who came from poor villages, found ‘lucrative’ employment in Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia. Many of these employees were able to send back to their villages what amounted to a ‘small fortune’ and were able to build houses and provide accommodation and support to their village in a way that is typically Indonesian.

In moving to these Arab countries, moderate Muslims were required to adopt far stricter Islamic practices related to modest dress, wearing of beards for young men, Qur’anic study, prayer, chaperoning of young woman,  women confined to home, deference to men for women, strict observance of halal and cleanliness rituals. In other words, they adopted what K, somewhat derisively, described as Islam of ‘Arabic fanatics’.

Returning to their villages, these people continued to practice Islam in the new way and, because of their influence as respected financiers of the village, were able to impose these practices on others. Extreme versions of Islam have a missionary zeal in regard to their faith and this was a new “irritating” version of Islam for the generally moderate population of Indonesia. But, as K observed, Indonesian Muslims did not accept this invasion and there was significant ‘push back’ against a variety of Islam considered ‘foreign’.

Intrusive verses lived religion

Although K’s story canvassed the last 50 years, she made a special note that significant influences were most noticeable in the past 10 years. In conversations with my brother, who has worked across Central, East and South East Asia in his professional capacity, this intrusive version of Islam has gained significant ground across Asia, notably in Malaysia.

This is also confirmed by R, a school friend who has lived in Malaysia for 40 years and laments what he considers the debasing of Islam in recent years, often by outsiders, often rich Arabic tourists. For him, radical Islam was and is becoming a way of asserting Malay nationalism in a country with significant colonial baggage.

It is worth calling out some kinds of ‘Islam’ as essentially fascist. They are not ‘Islamic’ in the sense that most Muslims would understand their lived faith, but an intrusive invasion of cultural expression. I will discuss, in the next part, how this kind of fascist religious expression can radicalise a group and set them on a path of collision with local, provincial and national authority.

But, before that, one should return to the inherent fascism of the religious cult in which Zenz and I were immersed.

The Bible and the Sword

It is easy to understand, by reading the history of most European colonial endeavours, that religion gave a rationale for some of the most horrific atrocities that humans have known. Not only was the Bible and cross the symbol of the ‘righteous’ genocide in the Americas, or the driver for missionary conquests of ‘primitive’ cultures, but, through progressively more exclusive interpretations, primed the German people to believe that “Jews crucified Christ”. No doubt, martyrs like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who attempted to assassinate Hitler, took inspiration from their faith, so drawing some causal line between religion and atrocities is fraught.

The role that religion plays, for both Zenz and the radicalisers who created social unrest in Xinjiang, is as a kind of external justification. Fascism thrives in an environment of ‘paradise lost’ – some supposed and often highly fictionalised past is brought to bear on the current situation and all misfortune becomes the fault of those who have “abandoned God in unbelief”. For radical ‘Christianity’, the intense focus on separation from worldliness leads to condemnation of religious liturgy, homosexuality, scientific understanding, openness to different values, sex work, ‘adultery’, ‘illicit sex’, gender variation, cultural expression in art, eating and drinking practices, roles of men and women, dress … such a multitude of cultural norms become the object of hate and the identification of the ‘faithful’ determined by how well they subscribe to the exclusivity of the practices and attitudes.

Radical extremist ‘Islam’ follows a similar path.

The relationship to terror

At its worst, the underlying quest for control and power by the leaders within both Christian and Islamic sects turns to violence, usually targeting those who are considered ‘traitors’ to their religion. Some of the worst terror attacks occur among people of the same religions.

While the world was fixated on the Charlie Hebdo shootings and masses turned out on the streets in solidarity, the Boko Haram attack on the town of Baga in northern Nigeria,  killing at least 200 people, uncovered around the same date, was largely ignored in the world’s media, noted by the then progressive Guardian “Why did the world ignore Boko Haram’s Baga attacks?”

This table gives some notion of the extent of this religiously justified terror just in Africa in just that year. (note: this excludes at least half of the casualties of extremist ‘Islamic’ activity in 2015 in other countries)

Cameroon Jul-13 2 suicide bombers explode in a bar in the town of Fotokol and kill 13 people, including a soldier from Chad who was killed in the second explosion. 15
Cameroon Jul-26 A suicide bomber kills at least 14 people at a popular nightclub in Maruoa, just three days after 2 suicide bombers killed 20 people in the same town. 15
Cameroon Nov-21 Suicide bombers affiliated with Boko Haram kill at least 10 in northern Cameroon. 10
Chad Oct-10 Multiple suicide bombings in Chad killed 33 people and injured 51. The attack is believed to be the work of Boko Haram. 33
Chad Dec-05 Four female suicide bombers from the militant Islamist group Boko Haram attacked the Chadian island of Koulfoua on Lake Chad, killing at least 15 people and injuring 130. 19
Egypt Oct-31 Bomb on board a Russian jet brings it down in Sinai, bound for St Petersburg, killing 224 people. 224
Egypt Nov-24 In the November 2015 Sinai attack which occurred a day after the second round of parliamentary elections closed, militants attack a hotel housing election judges in the provincial capital of al-Arish in Egypt’s North Sinai. 7 dead, 10+ wounded 7
Egypt Nov-28 Islamist gunmen killed four security personnel in an attack at a police checkpoint in Saqqara. 4 dead 4
Egypt Dec-08 An explosive device by Islamists targeting a military convoy went off in Rafah. 4 dead 4 injured. 4
Kenya Apr-02 148 people – most of them Christian students – killed in Al-Shabaab’s Garissa University College attack before Easter weekend Holidays.[96 148
Kenya May-26 Al-Shabaab militants attacked two police patrols which turned into a gun battle north of Garissa, 5 police officers were injured but they were able to kill both of the attackers. 2
Libya Mar-25 ISIL affiliates, The Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries in Libya carried out suicide bombings in the city of Benghazi. Twelve were killed and 25 wounded. Five additional dead during attacks with a local militia 12
Libya May-21 A suicide bomber detonated his explosives at a military checkpoint outside of Misrata killing himself and two guards. 3
Mali Nov-28 Militants fired rockets on a MINUSMA peacekeeping forces base in northern Mali. Ansar Dine claimed responsibility. 3 dead, 20 wounded. 3
Niger Oct-28 Boko Haram militants attack a village in Niger, gunning down 13 people and allegedly burning down houses and cars during the rampage. 13
Niger Nov-25 Boko Haram invades a village and shoots indiscriminately residents and also fire rockets, killing 18. 18
Nigeria Jan-08 Jihadist Boko Haram attacked the town of Baga in northern Nigeria killing at least 200 people. Another 2,000 are unaccounted for 200
Nigeria Jun-26 Boko Haram kills at least 200 people as they gun down and bomb villages, mosques, and other public space. 200
Nigeria Jul-05 Two bombs explode at an elite restaurant and mosque, killing at least 15 people in Jos. 15
Nigeria Jul-07 A bomb explodes in a government office in Zaria, killing 20 people. 20
Nigeria Jul-17 Two Nigerian towns are attacked by two suicide bombers, killing 62 people. 62
Nigeria Jul-22 A series of explosions at two bus stations in Gombe kill about 40 people. 40
Nigeria Aug-11 47 people are killed as explosions erupt at a crowded market in the town of Sabon Gari. 47
Nigeria Aug-28 Boko Haram members massacre 79 people in 3 different Nigerian villages. 68 alone were killed in the village of Baanu. 79
Nigeria Sep-10 Explosion at a refugee camp for people fleeing Boko Haram kills at least 2. 2
Nigeria Sep-21 At least 54 people were killed by multiple explosions in Nigeria. 54
Nigeria Oct-01 Multiple suicide bombings by Boko Haram in North-East Nigeria killed 14 people (including the bombers) and injured 39. 14
Nigeria Oct-22 20 people were killed in the northeast state of Borno, Nigeria in a Boko Haram attack. 20
Nigeria Oct-23 Two separate mosques were attacked by suicide bombers, killing 42 in Nigeria. 42
Nigeria Nov-17 A suicide attack at a market in Yola killed more than 30 people and hospitalised more than 80. The attack is thought to be the work of Boko Haram. 30
Nigeria Nov-18 Two explosions rock a phone market in Kano killing at least 15 people and injuring more than 100. Boko Haram is suspected to be behind it. 15
Nigeria Nov-22 8 people among women and children demise when a female suicide bomber is reduced to pulp. 8
Nigeria Nov-27 21 killed in Boko Haram suicide attack on a Shia procession in Nigeria[citation ne 22
Nigeria Dec-13 Boko Haram Islamists, at least some using machetes, attacked residents of the villages of Warwara, Mangari, and Bura-Shika. 30 killed and 20 injured 30
Nigeria Dec-26 Boko Haram gunmen raided Kimba village in northern Nigeria, opening fire on residents and torching their homes. 14+ killed.[193] 14
Nigeria Dec-28 Fourteen Islamist female suicide bombers aged 12–18 attempted to simultaneously attack the city of Maiduguri. Seven of the bombers were shot dead by Nigerian forces while three managed to escape and detonate themselves in Baderi general area and near a Mosque, killing 26 people and wounding another 85. 36
Somalia Apr-20 A minivan of UN workers was bombed by Al-Shabaab in the Puntland region of Somalia. 9 dead 4 injured. 9
Somalia Oct-07 Militants of Al-Shabaab ambushed and killed the nephew of Somalia’s president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. 2 dead. 2
Syria Dec-11 In the Tell Tamer bombings three truck bombs by ISIL killed up to 60 people and injured more than 80 in the town of Tell Tamer. 60
Tunisia Mar-18 Bardo National Museum attack. Militants linked to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) attack the Bardo National Museum with guns, killing 21 people and injuring around 50 21
Tunisia Jun-26 2015 Sousse attacks – A gunman, named Seifeddine Rezgui, attacked a hotel targeting the European tourists staying there. 38
Tunisia Nov-24 At least 14 people were killed in a bus bombing in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. ISIL claimed responsibility for this attack that targeted a bus transporting members of the Presidential Guard. 14
Total 1624

To anyone engaged with global events and geopolitics, these figures are not remarkable, even if they are horrific. From 2013, the explosion of attacks, not on western targets, but within Islamic majority areas, clearly signalled an issue that the world needed to come to grips with.

The range of responses from around the world has already been touched upon, but the focus on the next part of this series will be Xinjiang in China and the deradicalisation project that occurred there.

Categories
Anti-China Narratives Testimony

Senator Patrick doesn’t seem to give a shit about the truth.

Last week, very politely, I asked Senator Patrick some questions about an important topic. Here’s the email.

Dear Senator Patrick

Professor James Leibold gave testimony to the Australian Senate Committee, Customs Amendment (Banning Goods Produced By Uyghur Forced Labour) Bill 2020 on Tuesday, 27 April, 2021, namely:

“Since 2019, I’ve interviewed 10 former Xinjiang workers and 30 immediate family members of workers and what I’ve learned from them through those interviews and through comparison to open-and-closed access Chinese government documents, such as internal police documents, is that a system of unfree labour is now widespread in Xinjiang and, to a certain extent, across China.”

Given the seriousness of these accusations, please explain why this valuable evidence was not obtained under notice – that is, a request made for Professor Leibold to provide de-identified transcripts of the interviews and explanations of the interview methodology.

Given that lying to a senate committee is contempt of the Senate and attracts a possible prison sentence, please explain what measures that you have taken to check that the professor was telling the truth.

I look forward to your response within the next 48 hours.

In the event that you choose not to respond, I will have no alternative than to judge that you have no interest in this matter or that it is not important to you and given the importance of this evidence, to publish your response.

Regards

Andrew Westerman

The accusation against China is very serious. It would seem that critical evidence, such as the testimony of people who have actually experienced forced labour, would be considered very pertinent to a Senate Committee looking to bring legislation before parliament to try and prevent it.

But despite a lot of posturing, it doesn’t seem like Senator Patrick actually gives a shit. The very fact that he didn’t follow this testimony from Leibold with a request for transcripts shows that he did not participate in this committee to see something of benefit occur to the people allegedly affected, but instead was doing what every politician is adept at – self-promotion.

The email I sent to Patrick was cc-ed to James Leibold. So now he, too, is aware of my request. But he’s not really obliged to do or say anything. For me, he can do what he likes. For the Senate, he just has to turn up and answer questions.

Of course, he has to tell the truth as well. Lying to the Senate is Contempt of Senate which can lead to a prison sentence. If he actually did as he said he did – that is, interviewed these people – then he should have no problem publishing de-identified transcript. So, since this is a serious issue, I’ll do what Patrick was too lazy or too stupid to do. I’ll ask Leibold, right here, to prove he is not lying.

Of course, he will probably ignore me. But, I did ask. And his response will be telling.

As for Patrick, just another politician full of shitfuckery.

Categories
Anti-China Narratives

What an apologist for terror looks like

You might think that someone who has been to a war zone, especially somewhere like Vietnam, might understand what being a pawn in a geopolitical game feels like and be interested to expose those who thought fit to sacrifice the young of the US, thoroughly radicalised to hate people who they had never met and who met them no harm. You might think that they might have twigged to the modes of persuasion that their government used to draw young men into a pointless conflict.

But, Paul Mooney has given us an insight into how thorough his radicalisation truly was, demonstrating that he is quite unable to either detect how he is being manipulated nor able to recognise the true danger of terrorism.

Brenton Tarrant was radicalised by a group of right-wing terror advocates. They cultivated in him the sense of the ‘other’ and a sincere belief in ‘replacement theory’. His manifesto is not the rant of a lunatic, but a measured rationale for the genocide of Muslims.

Just for Paul Mooney’s edification, so that he really does understand what terrorism looks like, despite my disgust, I share with him a pixelated image of part of Tarrant’s triumphal service for his cause. For his information, the segment of live stream shows a group of people cowering in the corner as Tarrant shoots them with an automatic weapon in cold blood. 52 people died.

I fear that there are people in the world for whom such images do not evoke disgust and a determination to never allow it to happen again. There are people, who in their enthusiasm to prove their credentials as anti-China heroes, do not seem to mind playing semantic games with terror.

Let’s examine Paul Mooney’s recent altercation with Daniel Dumbrill.

Mooney begins his Twitter stream with an attempt to bait Li Jingjing.

Of course, Mooney believes this is terribly clever and edgy. The sign, which supposedly refers to illegal religious activities, is his point. Much as I despise Sam Harris and his right-wing politics, one of his most brilliant pieces asks the question, “If a particular religion asks for you to pluck the eyes out of your firstborn, should you do it?” The obvious answer to Mooney’s infantile ‘meme’ is “If there are activities that are considered ‘religious practice’ that are harmful to people and could lead to illegal actions, such as stabbing someone, then regular people ought to expect the state to protect them.”

What is Mooney suggesting? Should Tarrant have been allowed his ‘holy war’ against Muslims, because it could be construed as religious?

Jingjing , who, quite rightly, defends her country against the multitude of vacuous accusation and is ever the patient teacher, provides Mooney with a video where she interviews an imam. The imam simply debunks the narrative from the West that China’s deradicalisation program is anything more than an effective way to prevent the Tarrants of the world.

It is such a calm, Chinese way of dealing with imbecilic western types, that it almost makes me laugh. The child waves a meme and the adult says calmly, “Not now, dear.”

Of course, Mooney plays the ‘CCP’ card. The imam is not real! He’s a puppet! And out trots the terror-apologia. Clearly, the imam cannot be considered to be independently intelligent and articulate and, plainly, had a ‘gutful’ of his people and his religion being manipulated by US interests. After all, Uighur people are museum artefacts in a human zoo, quaint relics who must be preserved exactly as we found them? How can they have agency?

I am amazed that, in what follows, Tweeters are so patient with Mooney. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but at this point, I would have said bluntly to Mooney, “Fuck off, you moron.” But I’m old, cranky and impatient with fools.

Mooney forms an alliance with a clown @JRsChinaBlog1, clearly another of the experts on China who peddle smear.

Apparently, according to Mooney, there’s an age limit on radicalisation. I suspect Mooney imagines himself as a psychologist of some repute, able to divine the motives of his ‘friend’. Of course, no young, impressionable young person, wavering in their cultural identity and religious allegiance could be swayed in their thinking by an 85 year old, who they respect and listen to as a cultural practice.

No need of vocational education? If your vocation is as an elder in your community and you spout extremism, education may be fruitless, but it is probably deserved. Hopefully, Mooney’s friend was so pissed off by the experience that she thought twice about being a terror apologist.

Of course, mate JR trots out the requisite propaganda set from the ‘authoritative’ NY Times. Maybe JR has lived in the upper reaches of Boganland, where no information except QAnon conspiracies penetrate. Maybe he would like to nominate the country, besides New Zealand (which failed abysmally) that didn’t take terror seriously. Let’s check them off. Indonesia (Muslim majority) shoots and kills a terror cell. Australian terrorist is shot by security guard. US bombs several countries, Israel bombs Gaza.  France and German shoot them dead.

So JR pretty much proves them-self to be a western media hack, with little of any substance to add.

Methodically, @cinahistory takes the infants through an understanding of the history of terror. But our terror apologising CIA operative constructs his terror rationale. “The folk were pissed off. They were justified to engage in terror. If China had not been so hard on radicalisation, nothing would have happened!”

This delusionary perspective aside, there’s something just as sinister at play here. In line with the racist trope of “everyone who is yellow looks the same”, Mooney espouses a view that Xinjiang Uyghurs universally subscribe to the bullying, fascist extremism that the likes of Arslan Hidayat and his ETIM ilk attempt to sell as Islam. Uyghurs who dissent from this, well, they are the CCP agents and those extremists are the true heroes.

Whether it’s wanton ignorance or simple deceit, Mooney’s terror apologia seems unable to come to grips with the reality of ‘East Turkistan’ involvement with ISIS. Despite the patient education from @cinahistory, Mooney has his heart set on terror denial.

I guess Mooney’s derisive response was an open invitation for Daniel Dumbrill to bring some hard evidence to Mooney (futile as that turns out to be).

Mooney’s open denial of terror, ETIM, extremism, radicalisation of youth is probably all part of the terror apologia script. Still, you wonder at his nerve to actually put it up on Twitter.

Mooney is well out of his depth in encountering Daniel. Daniel is a seasoned veteran of terror-denialists and the evidence he needs is at hand, with no hesitation. Things don’t end well for Mooney.

The last bomb dropped leaves Mooney recoiling. Yep, that’s HIS country explicitly articulating their policy on terror, in 2018.

I think I concur with those who, at the end of the interaction, feel a certain pity for Mooney. I would feel more sympathetic, except something about those cowering figures, those innocent Muslim women and children and old men, ignites an anger towards these denialists, these apologists, that I can no longer contain.

One day, someone who Mooney loves, someone who is dear to him, will be murdered at the hands of a terrorist, radicalised by someone’s ‘friend’. Maybe, in that moment, he will reflect that his touting for a job with the BBC by exhibiting his anti-China credentials was evil and moronic.

 

Categories
Anti-China Narratives Modes of addressing sources Poverty alleviation Western media bias against China

Beyond deradicalisation centres – Beijing takes a wholistic and rational approach to poverty alleviation – Part 1

Introduction: Religion muddies everything

Among western media, academia and social media, the ‘go to’ source for anti-China ‘information’ is Adrian Zenz. He is easily the most quoted and his work most referenced. This status, as some kind of guru, is surprising, considering Zenz’s formal qualifications are in theology, not Chinese history, economics, social policy or political science.

But anyone who has grown up within the religious circles that have surrounded Zenz since his youth will understand immediately how Zenz’s beliefs impact on his view of the world and how being ‘marinated’ in the toxic culture of the cult that is so earnestly anti-China creates a mode of thinking in which the only conclusion, even from the most benign of data or testimony, becomes ‘evidence’ of ‘evil’.

The taxonomy of evil that drives Zenz’s perspective

The world view to which members of this cult subscribe, in one version or another, with insignificant variation, places nearly everybody in the world, with the exception of a lucky few ‘saints’, on a collision course with God. At the top of the ‘taxonomy of evil’ are atheists and ‘atheist nations’. Further down are secularists. Other religions, especially those outside Abrahamic religions, are deception, failing to acknowledge the true God.

Finally, Judaism, Islam and Christianity have a place amongst the enemies of God – Jews for rejecting Christ, Islam for rejecting the Trinity and other Christians for adulterating the message of Jesus and allowing themselves to be tainted by feminism, homosexuality and socialism.

Fortunately for ‘the saints’ God is a jealous God and intends the mass destruction of all his enemies and, depending on the version of the cult’s ‘end times’ thesis, this ushers in 1000 years of glorious reign by Jesus. Saints are spared the holocaust that is predicted by being ushered into heaven during the Rapture.

It may come as a surprise to some that this fanciful set of beliefs could be taken seriously. But Zenz and his ilk are earnest in their beliefs and will pursue the ‘work of God’ with a zeal unmatched by even the world’s greatest revolutionaries. I know that, because I once lived in that world.

In my youth, nothing could evoke a greater sense of dread and fear as the mention of the the two great ‘evil empires’ – USSR and China. Every event was seen through the Cold War lens, but for my family, the geopolitical explanations of the actions of communists was not just about politics or economics – it was about a spiritual realm in which evil was dominating.

Within this cultish moral frame, any objective analysis of the actions of any agent, global or personal, was impossible. Communist and homosexuals had an inherent, sinister and common aim – to destroy the world. This plays out in the ‘work’ of Zenz, where even the most benign and unremarkable of actions, events or data are interpreted as evidence of evil.

A particular mode of dealing with evidence

But, a further characteristic of this cultish environment is the mode of research. I can remember interminable arguments over single words and passages of the Biblical text. ‘Verses’ were liberally cherry-picked to support a thesis and rejecting literal interpretations of texts was considered corrupt. The divine motives of God were unimpeachable – the logic was that the thesis was bequeathed by God to the saintly and any evidence, either external or textual, was massaged to fit that thesis.

This mode is clear in all of Zenz’s anti-China projects. Alternative explanations are not countenanced. The only explanation is that there is a evil nation driven by an evil government under the spell of an evil doctrine. This drives every interpretation of the sources to which Zenz refers.

Cherry picking evidence is considered entirely legitimate. The essential meaning of texts or testimony or any inconsistencies are simply ignored. Once again, this is Zenz’s mode in his anti-China papers – identified over and over again by those of us who care about academic integrity and who challenge the anti-China narrative.

Viewing the same evidence without the prejudice

I have decided to review one of Zenz’s ‘academic’ papers published in the Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 12, December 2019 titled “Beyond the Camps: Beijing’s Long-Term Scheme of Coercive Labor, Poverty Alleviation and Social Control in Xinjiang” and to include all of Adrian Zenz’s sources as my sources – but without his ‘blinkered’ perspective.

This is Part 1 of a 6 part series.