WASHINGTON - The US government's "genocide" accusation against China was based on data abuse and false claims of a right-wing religious extremist, according to a report published this week.

An investigation piece coming out on Thursday on the independent news website Grayzone indicated that the US State Department's so-called "genocide" accusation stemmed from a single source: a paper by German far-right ideologue Adrian Zenz in June 2020.

"A careful review of Zenz's research shows that his assertion of genocide is contradicted by flagrant data abuse, fraudulent claims, cherry-picking of source material, and propagandistic misrepresentations," said the piece.

Zenz also defamed the expansion of public healthcare services in Xinjiang as evidence of a genocide, said the piece.

For example, it said, he pointed to a photograph of Uyghur residents of rural regions of Xinjiang receiving medical consultation at a free health clinic as part of an "effort to enforce the thorough implementation of increasing intrusive birth control efforts."

Zenz has also invented statistics and spun tales to justify his false conclusion, according to the report, which also criticized "mainstream Western outlets like the AP, BBC and CNN" for having "accepted Zenz's dubious research as absolute fact," with "their apparent zeal for escalation with China."

Portrayed as a "China scholar" by Western media, Zenz was indeed a far-right Christian fundamentalist currently serving as an analyst at the Jamestown Foundation, a neoconservative think tank in Washington.