Adrian Zenz

In 2019, Zenz studied the mass detention of Uyghurs in re-education camps in Xinjiang based on Chinese government documents and spreadsheets pointing toward factories with interned workers from the internment camps.[5] In July 2019, Zenz published a study that laid out some of the repressive qualities of those camps, and gave a "speculative upper limit" of 1.5 million for the total number of people detained at any time since late 2016 in Xinjiang re-education camps, based on extrapolations from food allowance subsidies figures.[7] An analysis published by the Mercator Institute for China Studies in January 2019 cited Zenz's as one of two important studies that "popularized" the number of one million Uyghur detainees in 2018; Newsweek Japan reported that the accounting figures of the camps that were used to base Zenz's initial estimate of 1 million, were sourced by Istiqlal, an Uyghur exile operated media organization based in Turkey, who had said they obtained the numbers from a reliable local public security source.[8][9][10] It was described by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as delivering solid evidence for the extent of the repression that had only been previously known through anecdotal evidence.[11] In November 2019, Zenz estimated that the number of internment camps in Xinjiang had surpassed 1,000.[12]

Zenz has also published research, using publicly available Chinese government documents on the Chinese internet, that showed that the Chinese government has spent tens of millions of dollars since 2016 on a birth control surgery program that includes cash incentives for sterilization procedures and concluded that birth control violations are punishable by internment in the Xinjiang re-education camps.[13][14][15]

Zenz and his work on Xinjiang have been criticized by the Chinese government.[16][17]

Zenz is the author of 'Tibetanness' Under Threat?, a study of the modern Tibetan education system. In the book, he examines the career prospects of students who major in Tibetan-language studies and the notion that the greater market value of Chinese-language education threatens Tibetan ethnocultural survival.[4][18]

A 2019 article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described Zenz's research methods on Tibetans as unconventional and exciting little interest in the professional world. The article stated that Zenz had analyzed job postings for security personnel in Tibet, compared them with data on self-immolation by Tibetans, and then used that data to draw his conclusions about the Chinese government's policies of repression.[11] Academics referred to his work as "excellent discussion" with "interesting ways of measuring and representing" school outcomes[19] and as offering a "rare insight" into Tibetan education with "fascinating" details and of "immense value".[20]

In September 2020, Zenz authored a report that said that 500,000 Tibetans, mostly subsistence farmers and herders, were trained in the first seven months of 2020 in military-style training centres experts say are akin to labour camps.[21][22][23][24]