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FTR #1143 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: Providing political context for the Covid-19 outbreak, the next three programs explore the propagandizing of the Uighur (also spelled “Uyghur”) population of Xinjiang province. The alleged detention of “millions” of Uighurs in Xinjiang province has been the foundation for U.S. economic sanctions against China. It has been a major propaganda vehicle as well.
(We have followed the Uighurs and the destabilization of China for years, beginning with FTR #348.)
One should not fail to note that the efforts of “Team Uighur” are part of the full court press against China
Like the so-called “pro-democracy” movement in Hong Kong, the organizations that makeup “Team Uighur” are inextricably linked with U.S. intelligence. (We discussed the National Endowment for Democracy’s funding of the “pro-Democracy movement” in Hong Kong in FTR #‘s 1091, 1092 and 1093. NED was founded by William Casey, who was deeply involved with the creation of many of the other U.S. intelligence fronts and affiliates that have generated the Uighur propaganda.)
At a deeper historical level, “Team Uighur” is inextricably linked with the generating forces of international fascism.
The Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders receives financing from the National Endowment for Democracy. The Jamestown Foundation–another element in “Team Uighur” also has its genesis with William Casey and the Reagan administration. The widely repeated “study” generated by the NCHRD is based on interviews of eight individuals–this in an are with a population of 20 million. ” . . . . In a 2018 report submitted to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination – often misrepresented in Western media as a UN-authored report – CHRD ‘estimate[d] that roughly one million members of ethnic Uyghurs have been sent to ‘re-education’ detention camps and roughly two million have been forced to attend ‘re-education’ programs in Xinjiang.’ According to CHRD, this figure was ‘[b]ased on interviews and limited data.’ While CHRD states that it interviewed dozens of ethnic Uyghurs in the course of its study, their enormous estimate was ultimately based on interviews with exactly eight Uyghur individuals. . . .”
One of the leading propagandists concerning “mass incarceration of the Uighurs” is Adrian Zenz, a dogmatic End Times Christian, German national and “senior fellow in China studies at the far-right Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which was established by the US government in 1983.”
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation is an offshoot of the milieu of the OUN/B. ” . . . . an outgrowth of the National Captive Nations Committee, a group founded by Ukrainian nationalist Lev Dobriansky to lobby against any effort for detente with the Soviet Union. Its co-chairman, Yaroslav Stetsko, was a top leader of the fascist OUN‑B militia that fought alongside Nazi Germany during its occupation of Ukraine in World War Two. . . .” A key figure in the Azov Battalion (elements of which were present in Hong Kong) is Roman Zvarych, the personal secretary for Stetsko in the early 1980’s.
” . . . . formerly Yaroslav Stetsko’s private secretary, the U.S.-born Roman Zvarych (1953), represents a younger generation of the Ukrainian émigré community active during the Cold War and a direct link from the ABN to the Azov Battalion. . . . Zvarych participated in the activities of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations in the 1980s. . . . In February 2005, after Viktor Yushchenko’s election, Zvarych was appointed Minister of Justice. . . . According to Andriy Biletsky, the first commander of the Azov battalion, a civil paramilitary unit created in the wake of the Euromaidan, Zvarych was head of the headquarters of the Azov Central Committee in 2015 and supported the Azov battalion with ‘volunteers’ and political advice through his Zvarych Foundation. . . .”
Zenz has also generated his figures from highly questionable sources: ” . . . . Like the CHRD, Zenz arrived at his estimate ‘over 1 million’ in a dubious manner. He based it on a single report by Istiqlal TV, a Uyghur exile media organization based in Turkey . . . . Far from an impartial journalistic organization, Istiqlal TV advances the separatist cause while playing host to an assortment of extremist figures. One such character who often appears on Istiqlal TV is Abdulkadir Yapuquan, a reported leader of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a separatist group that aims to establish an independent homeland in Xinjiang called East Turkestan. . . .”
The “pro-Democracy” movement in Hong Kong also features Ukrainian Nazi elements–part of what we have called the “Earth Island Boogie.”
In numerous programs, we have noted international networking between the Ukrainian Nazi Azov Battalion and elements around the world:
- Azov is part of the “Intermarium Revival” that is seen as using Nazification of the Ukraine “pivot point” as a springboard for a global Nazi takeover.
- American Nazis and white supremacists are among the elements networking with Azov and then “bringing it all back home” to their native lands.
- Azov Battalion and Pravy Sektor (“Right Sector”) elements have decamped to Hong Kong, networking with the so-called “Pro-Democracy” forces and working on behalf of EU NGOs. This was discussed in FTR #1103.
Azov’s Hong Kong compatriots have adopted the OUN/B slogan, now the official salute of the Ukrainian police and military. ” . . . . The interest has been mutual, with Hong Kong’s ‘democrats’ drawing inspiration from Ukraine’s pro-Western Euromaidan ‘revolution’ that has empowered far-right, fascistic forces. Hong Kong protesters have embraced the slogan ‘Glory to Hong Kong’, adapted from ‘Slava Ukrayini’ or ‘Glory to Ukraine’, a slogan invented by Ukrainian fascists and used by Nazi collaborators during WWII that was re-popularized by the Euromaidan movement. . . . ”
Joshua Wong–“boy wonder” and darling of the American MSM–has doubled down on affinity with Ukraine: ” . . . . ‘No matter the differences between Ukraine and Hong Kong, our fights for freedom and democracy are the same,’ Joshua Wong told The Kyiv Post in 2019. ‘[W]e have to learn from Ukrainians… and show solidarity. Ukraine confronted the force of Russia — we are facing the force of Beijing.’ . . . .”
The program concludes with attenuated discussion of Third Reich veteran and CIA officer Ruzi (also “Ruzy”) Nazar. A veteran of the SS Dirlewanger Brigade, Nazar was liaising with the fascist National Action Party (also “National Movement Party”) of Alparslan Turkes at the time its Grey Wolves cadre was involved with shooting the Pope, an act that appears to have been a provocation.
In AFA #‘s 14 and 21, we noted that Nazar represented the Anti Bolshevik Bloc of Nations at the 1984 WACL conference in Dallas, Texas.
1a. The alleged detention of “millions” of Uighurs in Xinjiang province has been the foundation for U.S. economic sanctions against China. It has been a major propaganda vehicle as well.
The Trump administration on Monday barred 11 New Chinese companies from purchasing American technology and products without a special license, saying the firms were comp[licit in human rights violations in China’s campaign targeting Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region.
The list of sanctioned companies includes current and former suppliers to major international brands such as Apple, Ralph Lauren, Google, HP, Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss and Muji, according a report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a think tank established by the Australian government. The group cited the websites of the sanctioned Chinese companies, which mentioned their financial relationships with major American brands.
The administration’s announcement could precipitate more efforts by prominent clothing and technology brands to sever ties with opaque supply chains that touch on Xinjiang, a major source of cotton, textiles, petrochemicals and other goods that feed into Chinese factories.
Human rights groups and journalists have documented a campaign of mass detentions carried out by the Chinese government in Xinjiang, in which one million or more members of Muslim and other minority groups have been placed into large internment camps intended to increase their loyalty to the Communist Party. . . .
1b. Turning to the major focal point of the broadcasts, we note that the organizations involved with disseminating the Uighur propaganda have deep connections to U.S. intelligence fronts.
The Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders receives financing from the National Endowment for Democracy. The Jamestown Foundation–another element in “Team Uighur” also has its genesis with William Casey and the Reagan administration.
The widely repeated “study” generated by the NCHRD is based on interviews of eight individuals–this in an are with a population of 20 million. ” . . . . In a 2018 report submitted to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination – often misrepresented in Western media as a UN-authored report – CHRD ‘estimate[d] that roughly one million members of ethnic Uyghurs have been sent to ‘re-education’ detention camps and roughly two million have been forced to attend ‘re-education’ programs in Xinjiang.’ According to CHRD, this figure was ‘[b]ased on interviews and limited data.’ While CHRD states that it interviewed dozens of ethnic Uyghurs in the course of its study, their enormous estimate was ultimately based on interviews with exactly eight Uyghur individuals. . . .”
One of the leading propagandists concerning “mass incarceration of the Uighurs” is Adrian Zenz, a dogmatic End Times Christian, German national and “senior fellow in China studies at the far-right Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which was established by the US government in 1983.”
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation is an offshoot of the milieu of the OUN/B. ” . . . . an outgrowth of the National Captive Nations Committee, a group founded by Ukrainian nationalist Lev Dobriansky to lobby against any effort for detente with the Soviet Union. Its co-chairman, Yaroslav Stetsko, was a top leader of the fascist OUN‑B militia that fought alongside Nazi Germany during its occupation of Ukraine in World War Two. . . .” A key figure in the Azov Battalion (elements of which were present in Hong Kong) is Roman Zvarych, the personal secretary for Stetsko in the early 1980’s.
” . . . . formerly Yaroslav Stetsko’s private secretary, the U.S.-born Roman Zvarych (1953), represents a younger generation of the Ukrainian émigré community active during the Cold War and a direct link from the ABN to the Azov Battalion. . . . Zvarych participated in the activities of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations in the 1980s. . . . In February 2005, after Viktor Yushchenko’s election, Zvarych was appointed Minister of Justice. . . . According to Andriy Biletsky, the first commander of the Azov battalion, a civil paramilitary unit created in the wake of the Euromaidan, Zvarych was head of the headquarters of the Azov Central Committee in 2015 and supported the Azov battalion with ‘volunteers’ and political advice through his Zvarych Foundation. . . .”
Zenz has also generated his figures from highly questionable sources: ” . . . . Like the CHRD, Zenz arrived at his estimate “over 1 million” in a dubious manner. He based it on a single report by Istiqlal TV, a Uyghur exile media organization based in Turkey . . . . Far from an impartial journalistic organization, Istiqlal TV advances the separatist cause while playing host to an assortment of extremist figures. One such character who often appears on Istiqlal TV is Abdulkadir Yapuquan, a reported leader of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a separatist group that aims to establish an independent homeland in Xinjiang called East Turkestan. . . .”
The US House of Representatives passed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act on December 3, legislation which calls for the Donald Trump administration to impose sanctions against China over allegations that Beijing has detained millions of Muslim-majority Uyghurs in the western region of Xinjiang.
To drum up support for the sanctions bill, Western governments and media outlets have portrayed the People’s Republic as a human rights violator on par with Nazi Germany. Republican Rep. Chris Smith, for instance, denounced the Chinese government for what he called the “mass internment of millions on a scale not seen since the Holocaust,” in “modern-day concentration camps.”
The claim that China has detained millions of ethnic Uyghurs in its Xinjiang region is repeated with increasing frequency, but little scrutiny is ever applied. Yet a closer look at the figure and how it was obtained reveals a serious deficiency in data.
While this extraordinary claim is treated as unassailable in the West, it is, in fact, based on two highly dubious “studies.”
The first, by the US government-backed Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, formed its estimate by interviewing a grand total of eight people.
The second study relied on flimsy media reports and speculation. It was authored by Adrian Zenz, a far-right fundamentalist Christian who opposes homosexuality and gender equality, supports “scriptural spanking” of children, and believes he is “led by God” on a “mission” against China.
As Washington ratchets up pressure on China, Zenz has been lifted out of obscurity and transformed almost overnight into a go-to pundit on Xinjiang. He has testified before Congress, providing commentary in outlets from the Wall Street Journal to Democracy Now!, and delivering expert quotes in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ recent “China Cables” report. His Twitter bio notes that he is “moving across the Atlantic” from his native Germany.
Before Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal questioned Zenz about his religious “mission,” at a recent event about Xinjiang inside the US Capitol, he had received almost entirely uncritical promotion from Western media.
The Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, which first popularized the “millions detained” figure, has also been able to operate without a hint of media scrutiny.
Washington-backed NGO claims millions detained after interviewing eight people
The “millions detained” figure was first popularized by a Washington, DC-based NGO that is backed by the US government, the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD).
In a 2018 report submitted to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination – often misrepresented in Western media as a UN-authored report – CHRD “estimate[d] that roughly one million members of ethnic Uyghurs have been sent to ‘re-education’ detention camps and roughly two million have been forced to attend ‘re-education’ programs in Xinjiang.” According to CHRD, this figure was “[b]ased on interviews and limited data.”
While CHRD states that it interviewed dozens of ethnic Uyghurs in the course of its study, their enormous estimate was ultimately based on interviews with exactly eight Uyghur individuals.
Based on this absurdly small sample of research subjects in an area whose total population is 20 million, CHRD “extrapolated estimates” that “at least 10% of villagers […] are being detained in re-education detention camps, and 20% are being forced to attend day/evening re-education camps in the villages or townships, totaling 30% in both types of camps.”
Applying these estimated rates to the entirety of Xinjiang, CHRD arrived at the figures submitted to the UN claiming that one million ethnic Uyghurs have been detained in “re-education detention camps” and two million more have been “forced to attend day/evening re-education sessions”.
Thanks to questionable sources like the CHRD, the United States government has accused China of “arbitrarily detain[ing] 800,000 to possibly more than two million Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and other Muslims in internment camps designed to erase religious and ethnic identities.”
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2018, State Department official Scott Busby stated this this “is the U.S. government assessment, backed by our intelligence community and open source reporting.”
The Chinese government has rejected US allegations, and claims that it has in fact established “vocational education and training centers […] to prevent the breeding and spread of terrorism and religious extremism.” The Chinese Foreign Ministry has stated that “there [are] no so-called ‘re-education camps’ in Xinjiang at all. The vocational education and training centers legally operated in Xinjiang aim to help a small number of people affected by terrorist and extremist ideologies and equip them with skills, so that they can be self-reliant and re-integrate into society.”
In its mounting pressure campaign against China, the US is not only relying on CHRD for data; it is directly funding its operations. As Ben Norton and Ajit Singh previously reported for The Grayzone, CHRD receives significant financial support from Washington’s regime-change arm, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
The NGO has spent years campaigning on behalf of extreme right-wing opposition figures who celebrate colonialism and call for the “Westernization” of China. . . . .
‘Leading expert’ on Xinjiang relies on speculation and one questionable media report
The second key source for claims that China has detained millions of Uyghur Muslims is Adrian Zenz. He is a senior fellow in China studies at the far-right Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which was established by the US government in 1983.
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation is an outgrowth of the National Captive Nations Committee, a group founded by Ukrainian nationalist Lev Dobriansky to lobby against any effort for detente with the Soviet Union. Its co-chairman, Yaroslav Stetsko, was a top leader of the fascist OUN‑B militia that fought alongside Nazi Germany during its occupation of Ukraine in World War Two. Together, the two helped found the World Anti-Communist League that was described by journalist Joe Conason as “the organizational haven for neo-Nazis, fascists, and anti-Semitic extremists from two dozen countries.”
Today, Dobriansky’s daughter, Paula, sits on the board of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. A former Reagan and George HW Bush official and signatory of the original Project for a New American Century document, Paula Dobriansky has become a fixture in neoconservative circles on Capitol Hill.
From its office in Washington, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation agitates for regime change from Venezuela to the periphery of China, advancing the “double genocide” theory that rewrites the history of the Holocaust and posits communism as a deadly evil on par with Hitlerian fascism.
Zenz’s politicized research on Xinjiang and Tibet has proven one of this right-wing group’s most effective weapons.
In September of 2018, Zenz wrote an article published in the Central Asian Survey journal concluding that “Xinjiang’s total re-education internment figure may be estimated at just over one million.” (A condensed version of the article was initially published by the Jamestown Foundation, a neoconservative think tank founded during the height of the Cold War by Reagan administration personnel with the support of then-CIA Director William J. Casey).
Like the CHRD, Zenz arrived at his estimate “over 1 million” in a dubious manner. He based it on a single report by Istiqlal TV, a Uyghur exile media organization based in Turkey, which was republished by Newsweek Japan. Far from an impartial journalistic organization, Istiqlal TV advances the separatist cause while playing host to an assortment of extremist figures.
One such character who often appears on Istiqlal TV is Abdulkadir Yapuquan, a reported leader of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a separatist group that aims to establish an independent homeland in Xinjiang called East Turkestan.
ETIM has been designated as a terrorist organization with ties to al-Qaeda by the US, European Union, and UN Security Council’s Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee. The Associated Press has reported that since “2013, thousands of Uighurs… have traveled to Syria to train with the Uighur militant group Turkistan Islamic Party and fight alongside al-Qaida,” with “several hundred join[ing] the Islamic State.”
The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) has been among the most recalcitrant forces operating in the Al Qaeda-controlled Idlib province, rejecting all ceasefire efforts while indoctrinating children into militancy. TIP leadership has called on foreign Muslims to wage jihad in Syria, publishing an online recruitment video in 2018 that celebrated the 9/11 attacks as holy retaliation against a decadent United States awash in homosexuality and sin.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Yapuquan is “a regular guest on Istiqlal TV… where his interviews often extended into hours-long emotional tirades against China.”
Turkish journalist Abdullah Bozkurt reported that Istiqlal TV has also hosted fanatical anti-Semites like Nureddin Yıldız, who in an interview on the network, “called for armed jihad not only in China’s autonomous Xinjiang region but all over the world and described China as a nation of savages, worse than the Jews.”
The Istiqlal TV report relied on by Zenz published an unverified table of “re-education detainee figures” allegedly “leaked” by Chinese authorities, totaling 892,000 individuals in 68 Xinjiang counties as of Spring 2018.
Zenz pads this data by citing reports from Radio Free Asia, a US-funded news agency created by the CIA during the Cold War to propagandize against China. (The Uyghur Human Rights Act recently passed by Congress mandates the US Agency for Global Media – the governmental parent of Radio Free Asia – to report on Xinjiang, including “assessments of Chinese propaganda strategies.”)
With his cobbling of questionable sources, Zenz extrapolates an extremely broad estimate “at anywhere between several hundred thousand and just over one million.”
While admitting that “there is no certainty” to his estimate, he has concluded that it is nevertheless “reasonable to speculate.” He attempted to evade personal responsibility for the figure’s questionable reliability, however, by stating “[t]he accuracy of this estimate is of course predicated on the supposed validity of the stated sources.”
As time goes on, Zenz continues to inflate his speculative estimate of Uyghur detainees. Speaking at an event organized by the US mission in Geneva in March 2019, Zenz stated, “Although it is speculative it seems appropriate to estimate that up to 1.5 million ethnic minorities [have been detained by China in Xinjiang].” Zenz bumped up his estimate again in a November 2019 interview with Radio Free Asia, claiming China was detaining 1.8 million people.
In an interview with Der Spiegel, Zenz claimed that China has effectively outlawed the practice of Islam in Xinjiang. “Anyone in Xinjiang who engages in any type of religious practice, anyone who even has a single Koran verse saved on their mobile phone, will be subjected to a brutal process of reeducation without trial,” he maintained.
These incendiary claims have vaulted Zenz to the status of international “expert” on Xinjiang, earned him invites to testify before US Congress and Canadian Parliament, and to deliver commentary in major US media outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and Democracy Now!
Zenz has also been featured by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) as the leading authority legitimizing their recent “China Cables” investigation. The ICIJ report asserts that “[l]inguists, document and Xinjiang experts, including Zenz, who reviewed the documents have expressed confidence in their authenticity.”
Given Zenz’s habit of speculation and the questionable reliability of the lone Istiqlal TV media report he relies on for his estimates, it is troubling that Western governments and media have accepted and promoted his claims without a trace of skepticism.
A closer look at Zenz’s own biases should magnify these concerns, as he is a full-blown evangelical End Timer who appears to be believe that God has sent him on a holy crusade against the People’s Republic of China.
Fundamentalist Christian ‘led by God’ in mission against China, homosexuality, and gender equality
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 the 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.
Zenz outlined these views in a book he co-authored in 2012, titled Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation. In the tome, Zenz discussed the return of Jesus Christ, the coming wrath of God, and the rise of the Antichrist.
Zenz predicted that the future fall of capitalism will bring to power the Antichrist within a “few decades.” He identified the force that “will usher the Antichrist into power” as “the economic and financial fall of ‘Babylon,’ with ‘Babylon’ symbolically representing the world’s global economic system (capitalism).”
Along with the fall of capitalism, Zenz also views “postmodern relativism and tolerance thinking” and their apparent promotion of homosexuality, gender equality, and non-violent parenting to be threats to Christianity and “[t]he deceptive, leopard-like power behind the Antichrist.”
“It is very likely that the global persecution of true believers will center on the charge that they promote ‘intolerant views,’” Zenz wrote, “especially related to preaching against homosexuality.”
Zenz argued that “[h]ate crime and anti-discrimination laws will likely play a major role in the suppression of biblical Christianity” and formed part of an “anti-Christian ‘tolerance’ campaign” because they “forbid employers to discriminate based on gender or sexual orientations.”
“The outcome of this process is open rebellion against both God and God-given human authority structures”, Zenz stated, decrying that “[r]ising numbers of countries are banning all forms of physical punishment of children, the primary scriptural method for instilling respect for authority in the young generation and protecting them from rebellious tendencies.” Zenz assures readers that “true scriptural spanking is loving discipline and not violence.”
“Another important God-given authority structure that Satan is attacking through the postmodern spirit is that of gender authority structures”, Zenz continued. “Through notions of gender equality […] the enemy is undermining God’s unique but different role assignments for men and women.”
Given these obscurantist right-wing views, it is not surprising that Zenz’s proclaimed concern for the condition of Muslims in China does not seem to extend to Muslims elsewhere.
A search of Zenz’s Twitter profile returns no tweets concerning the rise of Islamophobia in the West, nor US wars and drone strikes against Muslim-majority countries. The only Tweet by Zenz concerning Muslims that is unrelated to China is a denial that there is a double standard in how violence is judged when committed by white people compared to Muslims.
‘The End Times is a very fascinating topic’
In his December 10, 2019 testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Adrian Zenz took a victory lap of sorts for Congress’ passage of the Uyghur Human Rights Act the week before, which placed new sanctions on the Chinese government. Citing the bill’s success, he called for opening a new front against China with a US investigation into “involuntary labor in relation to Xinjiang.”
That same day, Zenz also appeared on a panel dedicated to Xinjiang that was hosted by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in the US Capitol Visitor Center.
On hand were Republican heavyweights like Sam Brownback, the ferociously anti-LGBT, anti-abortion former governor of Kansas and current US ambassador-at-large for religious freedom, as well as top staffers of Sen. Marco Rubio, the sponsor of virtually every China sanctions bill to be rubber-stamped by Congress in recent weeks.
During a question-and-answer session, The Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal asked Zenz about his fundamentalist religious views and far-right politics.
Zenz did not distance himself from his past statements denouncing gender equality and “tolerance thinking,” or his advocacy for the “scriptural spanking” of children. Instead, he asserted that there was no inconsistency between those views and the quality of his research on China’s Xinjiang region.
“I do have a diverse background and I have personal connections which I do not believe are inconsistent with my research,” Zenz responded to Blumenthal. “I do not support China’s authoritarian methods in any way, and I do believe there’s a God who is bringing judgment in different forms. The End Times is a very fascinating topic, a very complex topic, and I think, very relevant. And I think it’s good to live aware of that.”
Moments later, a visibly upset young man rose from his seat to “condemn the tankie Max Blumenthal.” Unleashing a torrent of insults at Blumenthal, he made no attempt to refute the journalist’s line of questioning.
The rigorously enforced conviction on display in the politically hermetic chambers of the US Capitol also encompasses the whole of Western media, where even purportedly progressive outlets have provided Zenz with an uncritical platform.
From Washington’s halls of power to major newsrooms, few are willing to let inconvenient facts get in the way of a new, undeniably faith-based Cold War crusade.
2. In numerous programs, we have noted international networking between the Ukrainian Nazi Azov Battalion and elements around the world:
- Azov is part of the “Intermarium Revival” that is seen as using Nazification of the Ukraine “pivot point” as a springboard for a global Nazi takeover.
- American Nazis and white supremacists are among the elements networking with Azov and then “bringing it all back home” to their native lands.
- Azov Battalion and Pravy Sektor (“Right Sector”) elements have decamped to Hong Kong, networking with the so-called “Pro-Democracy” forces and working on behalf of EU NGOs. This was discussed in FTR #1103.
Azov’s Hong Kong compatriots have adopted the OUN/B slogan, now the official salute of the Ukrainian police and military. ” . . . . The interest has been mutual, with Hong Kong’s ‘democrats’ drawing inspiration from Ukraine’s pro-Western Euromaidan ‘revolution’ that has empowered far-right, fascistic forces. Hong Kong protesters have embraced the slogan ‘Glory to Hong Kong’, adapted from ‘Slava Ukrayini’ or ‘Glory to Ukraine’, a slogan invented by Ukrainian fascists and used by Nazi collaborators during WWII that was re-popularized by the Euromaidan movement. . . . ”
Joshua Wong–“boy wonder” and darling of the American MSM–has doubled down on affinity with Ukraine: ” . . . . ‘No matter the differences between Ukraine and Hong Kong, our fights for freedom and democracy are the same,’ Joshua Wong told The Kyiv Post in 2019. ‘[W]e have to learn from Ukrainians… and show solidarity. Ukraine confronted the force of Russia — we are facing the force of Beijing.’ . . . .”
. . . . In recent days, the Black Lives Matter movement has been terrorized by white vigilante groups. Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s “pro-democracy” protests have served as a magnet for the U.S. and European far-right supporters. The ultra-right pilgrimages to Hong Kong have included numerous American white nationalists and Ukrainian neo-Nazis who previously fought in the fascist paramilitary group, Azov Battalion.
The interest has been mutual, with Hong Kong’s “democrats” drawing inspiration from Ukraine’s pro-Western Euromaidan “revolution” that has empowered far-right, fascistic forces. Hong Kong protesters have embraced the slogan “Glory to Hong Kong”, adapted from “Slava Ukrayini” or “Glory to Ukraine”, a slogan invented by Ukrainian fascists and used by Nazi collaborators during WWII that was re-popularized by the Euromaidan movement.
“No matter the differences between Ukraine and Hong Kong, our fights for freedom and democracy are the same,” Joshua Wong told The Kyiv Post in 2019. “[W]e have to learn from Ukrainians… and show solidarity. Ukraine confronted the force of Russia — we are facing the force of Beijing.” . . . .
3. The Hong Kong iteration of the OUN/UPA salute has become an anthem. In its coverage of the banning of that song by the Chinese authorities, The New York Times [predictably] fails to discuss the heritage of the slogan/song, nor the nature of the Ukrainian Nazi “troubadours” who brought it to Hong Kong.
In this context, it is important to remember that the National Endowment for Democracy–a U.S. intelligence “cut-out” founded by former CIA director William Casey–has helped finance the “pro-Democracy” forces in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong’s education secretary on Wednesday banned students from singing the protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong,” posting slogans with political messages or forming human chains, saying “the schools are obliged to stop” such activities.
The statement by the secretary, Kevin Yeung, ratcheted up the pressure on the pro-democracy movement as Hong Kong residents struggle to determine what is acceptable behavior under a strict new national security law that China imposed on the semiautonomous territory last week.
Students, including middle schoolers, have been a driving force in Hong Kong’s protest movement. Beijing’s imposition of the national security law last Wednesday — and the subsequent arrests of teenagers at protests — has led some families to express concerns that their children could be in jeopardy for singing pro-democracy songs or even for expressing such sentiments in their homes. . . .
4a. Networking with Isa Yusuf Alptekin at the Bandung (Indonesia) conference was Ruzi (or “Ruzy”) Nazar, an Uzbek national who fought in various Third Reich military formations, including the SS Dirlewanger Brigade. After the war, Nazar was a CIA operative networking with the National Action Party (or National Movement Party) of Alparslan Turkes.
Nazar represented the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations at the 1984 WACL conference in Dallas.
. . . . He did not have the right to speak at the conference, but he was able to organize a press conference for the journalists who had come from the four corners of the world to cover the event, including around thirty from the USSR. Ruzi told the press office of his plans, and they informed journalists and delegates of the press conference to be given by Ruzi Nazar, observer delegate from Turkestan and a former officer in the Turkestan Legion. Meanwhile, the chairman of the Bandung branch of the Masyumi Party told Ruzi just half an hour before the press conferee was due to begin that a North Caucasian guest called Seyit Shamil had arrived from Turkey. He had been unable to take part in the conference, as he had not been invited. Ruzi told the chairman that he should bring this guest straight in and seat him beside himself at the press conference. Seyit Shamil was the grandson of Sheikh Shamil, the national hero of the North Caucasus, who had fought for its independence against the armies of the tsars. Seyit Shamil had wanted to come to Bandung along with the Uyghur leader Isa Yusuf Alptekin, the former prime minister of the Republic of East Turkestan, which had been broken up by Chinese armies in 1949. But Shamil was the only one to obtain a visa, as the Chinese government had put pressure on the Indonesian government to stop Alptekin being given one. They had gone together from Istanbul to Karachi, where Alptekin had again applied for a visa and been turned down. The Uyghur leader decided to wait in Pakistan for Shamil to return. . . .
Uncle Sam and Il Duce
A recent article in the Guardian UK, September 22, 2020 titled “Report charts China’s expansion of mass labour programme in Tibet” by “Helen Davidson and agencies” is evidence that is based on information from a “German anthropologist”. The article states”
“Chinese authorities are dramatically expanding a mass labour programme in Tibet, which analysts have compared to alleged forced labour operations in Xinjiang, according to evidence compiled by a German anthropologist and corroborated by Reuters.” It later states:
“China has set quotas to move hundreds of thousands of Tibetan rural labourers off their land and into “military-style” facilities to train them as factory workers, according to documents analysed by researcher Adrian Zenz for the Jamestown Foundation, a US research institute.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/22/report-charts-chinas-expansion-of-mass-labour-programme-in-tibet?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
The corroborating article from Reuters uses the same source of information to corroborate the report which makes it subject to scrutiny. The article https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-rights-tibet-exclusive/exclusive-china-sharply-expands-mass-labor-program-in-tibet-idUSKCN26D0GT states:
“Adrian Zenz, an independent Tibet and Xinjiang researcher, who compiled the core findings about the program. These are detailed in a report released this week by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based institute that focuses on policy issues of strategic importance to the U.S. “It’s a coercive lifestyle change from nomadism and farming to wage labor.”
China denies this in the article which reports:
“In a statement to Reuters, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly denied the involvement of forced labor, and said China is a country with rule of law and that workers are voluntary and properly compensated.”
““What these people with ulterior motives are calling ‘forced labor’ simply does not exist. We hope the international community will distinguish right from wrong, respect facts, and not be fooled by lies,” it said.”
“Critics, spearheaded by Tibetan spiritual leader the
“Dalai Lama, accuse the Chinese authorities of carrying out “cultural genocide” in the region. The 85-year-old Nobel Laureate has been based in Dharamsala, India, since he fled China in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese authorities.” {Remember that the Dalai Lama was tutored in 1948 by SS Sargent Heinrich Harrer (who originally started with the SA in 1933) and they became lifelong friends}.
Here’s a pair of articles that raise an increasingly interesting the question: are we poised to see the far right’s ‘stolen election’ insurrectionary movement effectively merge with the parallel far right efforts to overthrow the government of China? It’s a questions that’s hard to avoid asking following a 12-hour event held last week at the World Trade Center celebrating the one-year anniversary of the New Federal State of China. That’s the Chinese government in exile started last year by Steve Bannon and his Chinese billionaire dissident sponsor Guo Wengui.
Speakers at the event included Guo, Bannon, Mike Lindell, and Michael Flynn. In keeping with the tone of the event, Flynn used the event to address his recent apparent endorsement of a Myanmar-style military coup in the US. Flynn deflected criticisms about coup call by issuing a kind of surreal non-denial denial where he complained about having “been pilloried in the media for things that I may have said or may not have said,” before going on to make comparison between the current situation in the US and the Founding Fathers’ battle for freedom against tyranny and making further vague calls for a new US revolution. Of course, Flynn was on video making his call for a coup, so his denials were really just a kind of wind-and-nod gas-lighting deflection for an audience that clearly would prefer to really see an actual coup.
And as the article describes, all four of these speakers drew heavy parallels between the fight to overthrow the government of China and the fight to reinstall Donald Trump as president. And as we’ll see in the second article except below, it’s Guo Wengui’s propaganda network that continues to be playing a major role in the online efforts to sow disinformation about a stolen US election. And that’s why we have to ask: is the far right fixation on reinstalling Trump under a ‘stolen election’ Big Lie going to merge with the efforts to overthrow the government of China? A kind of trans-national group insurrectionary effort?:
“All four of them drew heavy comparisons between Guo’s New Federal State of China and their own battle to overturn the results of the 2020 election based on the myth that it had been stolen. Bannon referred to the New Federal State as the “deplorables of China,” while Flynn made the comparison more explicit.”
The fight to overturn the election results and the fight to overthrow the government of China are part of the same fight. That was the meta message. A meta message Michael Flynn made much more specific. As Flynn put it, when we talk about the formation of new nation states, that’s a conversation Americans should be having too:
And as the following Washington Post piece from a few weeks ago describes, the network that put on this New Federal State of China event is capable of much more than just throwing an event. According to a recent report on an online propaganda network operation under Guo’s direction, a large number of people, some people and some volunteers, are feverishly working to pump out exactly the kind of messaging we heard at this event across social media. Recall how we heard about Guo and his “GNews” outfit pumping out disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic as far back as February 2020, right when the pandemic was getting underway. So this report is basically looking at how this network has evolved over the 2020 election cycle and it sounds like it only got bigger, more organized, and is now pushing and even more dangerous message. In multiple languages:
“Information disseminated by the entities that Graphika defined as the network focuses primarily on attacking China’s political leadership, but the network also has played a loud, persistent and largely overlooked role in U.S. politics, including in fueling falsehoods — repeatedly rejected by investigators and courts — that widespread fraud marred the 2020 election.”
China was stolen from Guo and the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. These have been the twin core messages of this propaganda network since Trump’s election loss, making this network an important component of the US far right’s overall propaganda capacity. It’s part of what makes this alliance between a fascist like Steve Bannon and Chinese exile billionaire a fascinating developing for the evolution US far right:
But another part of what makes this network so interesting is that its messages clearly have a lot of overlap with Falun Gong’s extensive propaganda network, which raises interesting questions about the extent to which we’re looking at the same network. The Graphika report indicates that there really are a large number of real people who are carrying out this coordinated online activity. Some of them paid workers but others acting as volunteers. To what extent is Guo Wengui’s network of volunteers a Falun Gong network?
Finally, note how the far right memes about COVID-19 being a Chinese bioweapon are synergizing with far right claims about vaccines being part of a government plot and the broader QAnon worldview of a global Satanic liberal elite running the world. The disinformation around pandemic is effectively fueling the far right meme of China being behind every non-far right government on the planet:
It all underscores how the West’s growing demonization campaign against China is playing into the far right’s attempts to paint China as being at the center of an global opposition to the far right. You’re either standing with Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Guo Wegui, Falun Gong, and Donald Trump and every other far right movement around the world. Or you’re standing with the Chinese government. That’s the rhetorical framing at work here. So as the US and the West continues to implicitly back the downfall of the Chinese government and establishment of a New Federal State of China, it’s going to be worth keeping in mind that this Chinese destabilization campaign is increasingly morphing into a joint China-Western democracy destabilization campaign. In keeping with the memes.
The Daily Beast has an interesting update on Steve Bannon and Guo Wengui’s China regime range efforts. It turns out the pair established an embassy for their new New Federal State of China. The Himalaya Embassy was established in June 2020. In a random six-bedroom custom-designed six-story Manhattan mansion. It’s an interesting location, and apparently being used in violation of the city’s zoning laws since its coded as a residential building. Not an embassy.
So is this mansion another one of Guo Wengui’s assets? Nope. It was built for Argentine billionaire Eduardo Eurnekian, who put the home up for sale for a large sum shortly after completing its construction. Eurnekian has a history of public hostility towards the Chinese government while at the same time working with Chinese state-owned companies.
Guo’s organization leased the property almost immediately after Eurnekian put it on the market, effectively taking it off-market. There have been no active efforts to sell the location for the last three years. So Guo’s organization started leasing this property a couple years before ‘The Himilayan Embassy’ formally opened in 2020. According to 2019 IRS documents, it’s the Rule of Law Society IV and its sister group the Rule of Law Foundation III occupying at least part of this space. Both organizations were set up by Bannon and Guo in 2018. The organizations reported receiving a combined $320,000 in donated rent in 2019 for their space on the third floor of the Eurnekian property.
Interestingly, it’s not disclosed who made those donations to pay the lease. And when an employee of Guo’s family investment office was asked about the identity of who was making those donations in a 2019 court deposition they pleaded ignorance. So this story about the ‘Himilayan Embassy’ is raising all sorts of questions about the possibility of a still-undisclosed mystery financier for Guo Wengui and Steve Bannon’s China destabilization efforts:
“It’s unclear why, or under what terms, Eurnekian has allowed Bannon and Guo to use his abode. Born to Armenian parents in Buenos Aires in 1932, Eurnekian built his 1.8 billion fortune as something of an entrepreneurial nomad. According to the Spanish paper El Pais, after his family textile business collapsed in the early 1980s, he moved into media, acquiring a cable station he claims to have sold for a tidy $750 million in 1995.”
It’s a mystery. Why would an Argentinian billionaire of Armenian descent decide to lease his new Manhattan mansion to Guo and Bannon? He’s known to be public hiostile to the Chinese government, but he’s also demonstrably more than happy to work with Chinese state-owned firms and somehow managed to purchase the Argentinian assets of China’s state-run oil exporter, Sinopec, for a fraction of what Sinopec paid for them. Eurnekian may have a hostile relationship with China, but it’s a complicated hostile relationship:
And note the mystery about who is actually paying the lease. According to IRS disclosures, the Rule of Law Society IV and its sister group the Rule of Law Foundation III reported receiving a combined $320,000 in donated rent in 2019 for their space on the third floor of the Eurnekian property. And yet an employee of Guo’s family investment office, also located on the premises, pleaded ignorance in a 2019 court deposition when asked who paid the company’s rent. So for some reason they felt compelled to hide the source of the funding from the courts. Why? It’s largely assumed that it’s Guo Wengui financing these efforts. Are other actors financing Guo Wengui’s efforts? It’s one of the questions raised by this story:
Finally, we have to ask what exactly are they hiding? Like physically hiding? They apparently wouldn’t even let an inspector from the New York City Department of Buildings about the property the agency into the building. Is this simply because the ’embassy’ is a blatant violation of the city’s zoning codes? Or something else?
What kind of dark secrets should we expect to find in a rogue fascist fake embassy run by Steve Bannon? It’s a question that apparently remains unanswered by New York City officials. For several years now. It must be a diplomatic immunity thing. The kind of diplomatic immunity long enjoyed by America’s elite fascists.