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REVIEW OF THE SOURCES RELIED UPON MY MR. ZENZ IN HIS
JPR ARTICLE TO SUPPORT THE CLAIM THAT THERE ARE 1.5 MILLION MUSLIM MINORITY
PEOPLE DETAINED IN WORK-EDUCATION CENTERS IN XINJIANG
August 9, 2020
Page 11 from Mr. Zenz’s
article in the JPR:
“The total number of persons in Xinjiang who have gone through some form
of internment since 2016 or 2017 must be very substantial. A government notice
from Akedunjiemi Village, Selibuya Township, Bachu County (Kashgar Prefecture)
about political and social control work in villages mentions the use of the 4th
re-education facility on the list: “strengthen re-education, send focus persons
and daily management persons in separate batches to the township legal system
training school [ ] to implement transformation through education”.[54] The
context makes it clear that this form of re-education targets persons that are
considered to be more “problematic”. The document also indicates the scale of
the detentions. In that particular village in 2016, of 1,750 persons (of all
ages), 110 were subjected to re-education in the legal system training school.
This figure represents 6.3 percent of the total population or 9.3 percent of the
adult population.[55] Given that this was before the massive re-education
internment campaign in spring 2017, the total number of Uyghurs and other
Turkic minorities who have gone through some form of extrajudicial internment
since then appears to be very substantial.”
Note 54:
This link leads to a document issued by an organ of the CCP (Exhibit 1):
学习园地
作者：机关党委 点击数：168 【字体： 大 中 小】 【打印本页】 【关闭本页】
自治区深化“访民情惠民生聚民心”
驻村工作应知应会问答
It concerns issues relating to census and population statistics.
The only reference to 110 people is the following:
（二）坚持“以户管人”五步工作法，完善实有人口的服务和动态管理工作。一是坚持“以户管人”五步工作法，推行党员干部包组联户机制，落实维稳责任区。采取“三位一体”混合分组开展入户登记，进行“人、身份证和户口本”三对应三核查，今年共核查登记户籍469户1750人，比去年增加103户19人；核查出无户籍67人，需迁入户籍90人，需迁出户籍39人，户籍信息有误62人，户在人长期在外打工人员及家属587人；梳理出3类人员及家属110人，80.90.00后青年751人，基本管控1640人.
The document relates how the population has changed from 469 households
and 1,750 people up 103 households and 19 people from the previous census.
The passage “梳理出3类人员及家属110人” appears to refer the total of people who are either
in custody, in criminal detention or in work-education detention.
Please see : http://www.xjcoop.com/index.aspx?lanmuid=93&sublanmuid=709&id=1676, which appears
to be a local CCP organization, where “3类人员” is defined as follows:
收押、判刑和“三学”人员（以下简称“三类”人员）
Mr. Zenz appeared to assume that all 110 people referred to are in work-education
camps, but he does not explain or justify any such inference.
The percentage of the population in jail in China as a whole is well below
1% and the number of people in custody is unknown.
Zenz does not indicate whether every “三学” is in each case necessarily in detention
or only some part thereof, and if so what portion.
Zenz does not indicate whether the 110 in question were throughout the
year, or on a given day of the year or whether it includes all people detained
for any period of time during the year.
Using Zenz’s 6.3% of population as corresponding
to the correct percentage, the extrapolation to the total number of detainees
in work-education camps would be of the order of 1.3 million.
Extrapolating from 110 people to a population of some 21 million also
raises serious question of reliability in terms of statistical science.
Note 55:
This note does not contain any source but instead the following text:
”Based on the 2015 mini census (2015 1% ) for Bachu County and Xinjiang.
The population aged 0-17 years was estimated based on the 0-14 year cohort from
the 2015 mini census and the 15-19 year cohort (multiplied by 0.5) from the
2010 census. Rapid population growth in Uyghur majority regions means that
using 2015 census data makes for a much more accurate estimate than solely
relying on the 2010 census data.”
In short, nothing in the sources cited by Mr. Zenz supports his claim
that there 110 people of Muslim minorities in work-education centers in this
location.
Also，extrapolation form one village to the entire
population of villages in Xinjiang is not reliable in terms of statistical
analysis.
Page 11 from Mr. Zenz’s
article in the JPR:
“Xinjiang’s budget shows that in 2018, the regional government gave 1.59
billion RMB of food allowance subsidies for VTIC persons (zhiye jiaoyu peixun
xueyuan ) to its minority prefectures, most of it to Uyghur majority
regions.[56] It is possible that the prefectures and counties supplement this
further with their own funding, although the author did not analyze this in
detail. Witness accounts note that VTIC meals are extremely low in quality and
quantity. If we take the Chinese military’s food allowance for ordinary
soldiers of 11 RMB per person per day as the standard and assume that local regions
do not furnish any additional funds, that would mean that these subsidies could
have fed about 395,000 persons.[57] If the cost (and quality) of the food given
to VTIC detainee is only half that of the average PLA soldier, which appears
more than likely, then that figure doubles. If detainees were on a very poor
diet below common calorie intake requirements for adults, and we assumed a
daily food allowance of 4.5 RMB (such as 1.5 RMB per meal with three daily
meals), the VTIC detainee figure could be just below one million. Given that the
VTICs appear to be one of the most prevalent forms of internment, such numbers
are generally within a realistic range.”
Note 56:
It leads to a table表十二：2019年自治区本级一般公共预算
政府预算支出经济分类明细表, in short the public budget for autonomous districts. (Exhibit 2)
The link in Mr. Zenz‘s
article leads to the general site of the Xinjiang Government and it does not seem
possible to verify that the tables were actually produced by the Xinjiang
Government.
The tables themselves bear no markings of the Government.
But supposing the tables to be authentic, the
years 2018 and 2019, there are allocations respectively of 1.9392 billion RMB
and 1.9082 billion RMB.
The allocations are for “陪训 费“ （pei xun fei）,
which I translate as expenses for education.
So these amounts are not limited, as claimed
by Mr. Zenz to “zhiyejiaoyuxueyuan”, i.e. the work-education centers where the
Muslim minorities are detained. They appear to concern all expenses related to
education.
Nothing would indicate that the funds are only
for food expenses, as claimed by Mr. Zenz.
Instead, the expenses cover all “机关商品和服务支付“，；
i.e；”organizations’payments for products and services”
On a different table covering “Subsidies from the Autonomous Region to
Localities” (Exhibit 3)， there does appear line for ‘职业教育培训中心学员伙食费补助 » corresponding to a total of 1.58 billion RMB, which
are allocated as follows:
Yili Prefecture 200 million
Aksu Area 250 million
Kyzyl Suzhou 10 million
Kashgar Area 660
million
Hotan 360
million
Note 57:
One might expect that this note would lead to a calculation of how Mr.
Zenz arrives at a number of 395,000.
Instead, the links cited refer to two documents
1.中美俄三国军人伙食比比看 解放军设四类灶
[ 2007-07-18
09:14 ]
i.e. a comparison in China Daily of expenses for the Chinese, American
and Russian militaries.
The data relate to 2007. (Exhibit 4)
解放军目前的伙食费标准分别为：一类灶每人每天１１元、二类灶１３元、三类灶２３元、四类灶３９元，(i.e.
food expenses would have ranged between 1,1 RB per day per person or as high as
3.9 RMB depending on the class of the personnel)
2. A.
web site operated by a Taiwanese meals Management Services Limited Company that
is has passed ISO9001: 2000 international certification system for food service
businesses. Specializes in the construction and food canteen contractor, canteen
kitchen production installation, canteen ingredients distribution, fast food
distribution and banquets. (Exhibit 5)
It proposes a range of meals with budgets for a balanced diet.
The budgets range between 8 and 18 yuan per day.
The crucial variable in extrapolating from the food budget to the number
of detainees is the cost of the food.
Depending on whether the cost taken is 1.1 RMB per meal or 3.9 RMB, the
number of people that would be fed over one year varies from 372 322 to 1 320 050. If the costs were adjusted
for inflation (21.1% over the 2007-2019 period), then the budget could have fed
from 310,265 to 1,0910,950 people per year. (Exhibit 5)
Page 11 of Mr. Zenz’s JPR
article
“Specifically, Kashgar Prefecture alone received 666 million RMB in such
food subsidies, sufficient for about
166,000 VTIC persons at the average PLA soldier’s daily allowance level, which
equates to approximately 5.4 percent of that region’s adult population (in
2018).[58] Again, this would refer to only one of up to 8 forms of
extrajudicial internment. If the daily allowance were less than at the PLA,
which is more than likely given witness statements, or if the prefecture added
its own funding to this budget, then the number of VTIC detainees alone could
be around 10 percent. Together with other forms of internment, Kashgar
Prefecture’s internment share could be significantly higher than 10 percent. The
same figures for Hotan Prefecture are very similar. With VTIC food subsidies of
360 million RMB and assuming the daily PLA food allowance rate, the share of
its adult population detained in VTICs alone would amount to 5.5 percent (about
90,000 persons). Again, the actual share is likely substantially higher than
this rather conservative estimate.”
Note 58:
This note leads to a Kashgar Government document concerning economic and
social statistics issued on April 30, 2019.
来源：喀什地区统计局
国家统计局喀什调查队 作者： 发布时间：2019年04月30日 点击数： 16072
Mr. Zenz does not explain his calculations.
He refers to the amounts for food subsidies referred to above but does
not specify which cost of meals he has used. (Exhibit 6)
Supposing that the percentages of the population in detention centers
were accurate (5.5%), the total number of detainees in Xinjiang would be 621,682
to 741,106 depending on whether only Uyghurs were considered to be targeted or
all Muslim minorities.
|
Uyghur |
11 303
300 |
|
Kazakh |
1 591
200 |
|
Kirghiz |
202
200 |
|
Tajiks |
50
100 |
|
Uzbek |
18
769 |
|
TOTAL |
13 165
569 |
|