Talk:Adrian Zenz

What a disgustingly one-sided article.

Semi-protected edit request on 27 July 2021

This line should be removed: "Zenz, who is a fluent speaker of mandarin Chinese"

There is no evidence that Zenz speaks any Chinese language. 2A02:A460:6219:1:913D:25A9:BA6D:42BD (talk) 20:37, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: According to the supporting source, your assertion is factually incorrect. Melmann 21:54, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

The source linked does not provide any proof that Zenz is a fluent speaker of Mandarin, it simply asserts he does. There is no proof that Zenz speaks fluent Mandarin. LarsU778 (talk) 18:10, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

One-sided arguments

Wikipedia is famous for providing general information with a neutral tone. However, this article lacks arguments opposing the main layout, which leads one to think that it is not impartial at all. I request the editors to take a look on the opposite side and provide some critique. Otherwise, the article claims for no-ethics based analysis. The sections to pay attention to:

- The biography of Adrian Zenz;
- His personal believes; 
- His attitude towards Chinese;
- His work with the think-tank in W,CD;
- The reputation of that think-tank;
- The other side story;
- The Xinjiang - proofs;
- The independent researchers and journalists based in Xijiang. 

Unless these topics are covered, the article cannot be in free access, as it advocates one-sided arguments. Thank You — Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.20.55.8 (talk • contribs)

The "Led by God" part

Why within the article it is mentioned several times that his reply was that he was "...led by God..."? It looks as a specifical design for the appeal to believers purpose. However, it makes no sense to include this information in the top heading, as it diverts the attention to the emotional appeals. Please, consider deleting this irrelevant part, as this may not stand for the real purpose of his investigation. It is non-academical — Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.20.55.8 (talk • contribs)

I reverted the addition of it to the lead, as it's an incredibly small part of this article and the theology stuff is not a significant aspect of Zenz's notability. Seems fine in the theology section though. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 08:53, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Criticism of Xinjiang Work

My information on criticism of Zenz's Xinjiang work was recently removed. Would like to get consensus for it's conclusion. I feel that this information would add balance to the argument, is well sourced, clearly attributes the opinions (does not say they are facts), shows the response from Zenz or others to the criticism. The assertion by User:Neutrality that this is "Chinese government apologia" is pretty inaccurate considering this has all been discussed by reliable third party sources and is worrying for WP if we cannot include widely sourced information for fear of this accusation. My intended section below:

"Criticism

The Chinese government have claimed that Zenz fabricated his work on Xinjiang. In March 2021, China’s Foreign Ministry announced that Chinese companies and individuals would sue Zenz for economic and reputational damage resulting from his work.

The Gray Zone published an article in 2019 by Ajit Singh and Max Blumenthal questioning the rigorousness of Zenz's research methods as well as the influence of US government funding on his work. A further in-depth report by Singh in 2021 claimed that Zenz's Xinjiang work is the result of "fraudulent statistical manipulation, cherry-picking of source material, and propagandistic misrepresentations" citing the lack of peer-reviewing of his reports. The work of The Gray Zone has been critised in the media and categorised as "left-wing denialism" by Aljazeera.

In April 2021 while speaking to the National Press Club, Australian National University academic Jane Golley referred to a "convincing" paper debunking the conclusions in Zenz's work. The paper, published anonymously due to fear of the reaction in Australia, claimed that the number of Uighurs in re-education camps had likely been inflated and forced sterilisations are a misrepresented aspect of China's family planning policy. Golley defended the paper's scholarship, saying she received the paper through a former Australian ambassador to China and consulted with two colleagues before publicly discussing it. Barry Sautman, from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said the paper was a "sound examination of the principal politicised Xinjiang-related issues" and that he himself was not convinced of genocidal policy being carried out in Xinjiang. Zenz has discredited the anonymous paper, saying it would “struggle to get a pass mark as an undergraduate assignment”."

Sorry for the refs making the talk page look weird. Vladimir.copic (talk) 00:37, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

References

• This is, in fact, Chinese government apologia. (1) the Chinese government's point of view on Zenz (including their "lawsuit" against him) is already mentioned in the article (amply); (2) far from being a "reliable source" The Grayzone is a fringe publication that has been formally deprecated; (3) as for the genocide denial piece in a website called the "European Financial Review" by someone called Dan Steinbock, I am not aware of anything suggesting that this is a legitimate publication at all (and indeed the website appears wildly sketchy); and (4) as for the final paragraph, even the source material refers to it as an "anonymous, unpublished, non-peer reviewed, allegedly academic report"; there's no reason why that should get any airtime at all. Neutrality^talk 00:50, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

• User:Neutrality: "far from being a "reliable source" The Grayzone is a fringe publication that has been formally deprecated" even though the Grayzone has been "deprecated", it is clear from an objective view that the "deprecation" smear campaign was initiated by a clique of partisans with an assortment of fabrications and misrepresentations in their vapid arguments (I can address them if you want me to). Instead of relying on this slander of the Grayzone as unreliable, could you point out any faults in the articles cited?

"as for the genocide denial piece in a website called the "European Financial Review" by someone called Dan Steinbock, I am not aware of anything suggesting that this is a legitimate publication at all (and indeed the website appears wildly sketchy)" it's amusing that you don't even attack the article itself and instead go on to speculatory mudslinging. The piece by the European Financial Review cited had been thoroughly sourced by books, websites etc. almost the entire way down for its claims and this is not "genocide denial" when there is swaths of contradicting evidence and not even an academic consensus yet. Wow, those US government operatives must've been fringe, sketchy genocide-deniers.

Your edit has only sanitised Zenz further already from this pro-Zenz campaign of an article. Undo this irrational, disgraceful and prejudice reverting. ButterSlipper (talk) 22:17, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

If you want to challenge the Wikipedia community's stance on The Grayzone, you'll need to do it at the reliable sources noticeboard. Per WP:RSPS, it's not a reliable source for Wikipedia articles. An individual article's Talk page can't override that. Also, please avoid personalizing your arguments. Address content issues without characterizing other editors. Schazjmd (talk) 22:41, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

My bad, where did I personalise my argument again? Also thank you for the advice.

• I’m seeing a lot of things that we would be stating as facts in wikivoice which are not actually stated as facts in the source, we can’t be more certain about something than them. Looking at the sources this also appears cherrypicked, we need to abide by WP:NPOV. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:58, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

• User:Horse Eye's Back - editors are free to edit and tidy-up (a great thing about WP!) if I've infringed upon WP:NPOV by my clumsy wording.Vladimir.copic (talk) 01:45, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
• We are not looking at the critical sources on their own though. They have been widely discussed (often critically) in reliable sources? The Australian, ABC, The Sydney Morning Herald, South China Morning Post, Australian Financial Review, Foreign Policy, Sky News among others ([1] [2] [3] [4] [5]) have discussed Jane Golley and the anonymous paper. The work by The Gray Zone has been discussed by Aljazeera, Haaretz, Axios, Wall Street Journal, Russia Today (not reliable but shows wide coverage), Coda, New Statesman, South China Morning Post among others. I concede that sourcing can probably be slightly improved for The Gray Zone section. Many of these sources are used elsewhere in the article so what is wrong with them now? This appears to be WP:POV by omission if we cannot accept well sourced information. Vladimir.copic (talk) 01:23, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Vladimir, I am broadly sympathetic to what you say here, but I think we won't be able to expand the article to reflect your concerns unless the discourse in RS moves further on this issue. As the events involving Professor Jane Golley indicate, there is an ironclad narrative that questioning the conclusions of Zenz's research (upon which a vast majority of RS reporting on the Uighur issue depends) is nothing but apologia for the Chinese government. I think this is a shame, because research is research; it should be subject to free and open discussion and debate among experts in the field in which it is conducted. It is somewhat ironic that so many discussions about the actions of the Chinese government revolve around notions of authoritarianism, free speech, censorship, and so on, but questioning the conclusions of Zenz's research is enough to force the resignation of one of Australia's top China scholars. (A hypothetical response would be: "But the work Golley referred to was an anonymous document and not peer reviewed!" My point stands. It appears there are no shades of grey when it comes to deviation from the notion that Zenz's work is unassailably sound: doing so is simply heretical. If a historian, in raising questions about the work of another historian, turned out to have gotten some numbers wrong, he or she would simply say, "Okay, I got some numbers wrong, I need to look at this stuff again." And nobody would care too much. The same is not true of the area we are discussing here.)

In terms of RS, I think this, from the SCMP, is enlightening but probably not enough to warrant additions to this article's 'criticism' section (which should simply be removed and the content placed elsewhere, because of the usual problems with criticism sections.) In the SCMP piece, Zenz himself admits that the figures arrived on regarding total numbers of detainees were extrapolated from small data sets, a fact noted also (albeit much more polemically) by the (deprecated, biased, fringe, wumao, etc) Grayzone. Anotheranothername (talk) 03:36, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

• Two points in response:

1. These are valid points but I would then say that the entire "Reception" section is quite problematic. Especially if primary sourced endorsements are seen as notable while criticism with both primary and secondary sources discussing it (even if they discredit it) is not. This is the main reason I inserted these points - as well as the Golley story being so big in Australia.
2. Even if the criticism is junk scholarship (and it probably is), the sheer amount of coverage about it warrants notability (it is notable enough to be covered on Max Blumenthal to some extent). So notable that Zenz himself responded to it. I think editors sometimes mistakenly think that reporting a widely covered view is an endorsement of this point of view. I probably worded this too clumsily and didn't include enough of the pushback but it is bizarre that editors can hand waive away such sustained global coverage. We have entire pages dedicated to conspiracy theories remember! Vladimir.copic (talk) 04:13, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the Golley paper adds to our knowledge of Zenz. It's not a response to Zenz, but to accusations of genocide generally. I think this article is meant to be a biography of Zenz rather than a free-for-fall discussion of genocide allegations. NotBartEhrman (talk) 20:07, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting the paper (which isn't Golley's, btw) adds to our knowledge of Zenz. I was saying that there is not enough material in RS on a critical response to Zenz's work from China scholars for a "criticism" section (which, again, is unnecessary split from the content surrounding it). Since the work Zenz is most notable for provides an evidentiary base for allegations of genocide from some very powerful governments/organisations and individuals, we have to be very careful here. That cuts both ways. Anotheranothername (talk) 20:38, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Fluent in Mandarin?

Re this edit: the source previously used for the claim that Zenz is a fluent Chinese speaker didn't mention it so removal was correct. However, this reliable source says "The fluent Mandarin speaker spent months pouring over thousands of documents from obscure corners of the Chinese internet to join the dots to create a fuller picture of what was happening in one of the most closely guarded places on earth." Should/can we say he is so fluent? BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:57, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

• BobFromBrockley: I agree we should include whether or not Zenz speaks Chinese in this article because it is definitely relevant to this matter but the source cited is an uncritical admiration piece of Zenz from a right-wing news outlet. Moreover, this source is alone in making this claim among reliable sources, makes no effort to corroborate further for this contencious assertion and clashes with what Chinese-state media claims (I know it isn't really that reliable but they are Chinese themselves). If we find a more reliable source, it would be reasonable to put it in the first paragraph perhaps and not as a bolster for the legitimacy of his estimate (as that would violate NPOV) :)