China breaching every article in genocide convention, says legal report on Uighurs | Uyghurs | The Guardian

Thinktank publishes first non-governmental legal examination of China’s actions in Xinjiang.

Iain Duncan Smith MP

China imposes sanctions on UK MPs, lawyers and academic in Xinjiang row | China | The Guardian

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith says he will wear the retaliation like a ‘badge of honour’.

tuzzi
@tuzzi新疆出生率近兩年暴跌。圖上紅線是新疆人口出生率，黑線是中國平均，藍線為其他省份。沒有一個像新疆這樣暴跌的。

事實上考慮到漢族人口在新疆已經過半，而這些人生育率可能不會跌那麼低，這條線可能顯示，維吾爾人生育率暴跌程度是線條所示的兩倍=接近沒在生了。

來源：中國統計年報。

細節請看推串：https://twitter.com/jnzst/status/1364530097701576706

John Stone
@jnzstTen years of birth rate data shows how remarkable the situation in Xinjiang is, where the birth rate has halved in two years.

Red is Xinjiang. Black is China's average. Every other province is blue.

In case it wasn't obvious that Xinjiang is an extreme outlier, here's a histogram with every 2-year change for each province. Xinjiang's 49% drop from 2017 to 2019 is circled in red and unparalleled.

The Uyghur birth rate has probably dropped even more than 50%, because Han make up almost half of Xinjiang's population and their birth rate likely hasn't dropped as much.

If the XJ Han birth rate is similar to the national average, the Ughur birthrate went from roughly 20 to 7!

The source of this data is China's official publication, China Statistical Yearbook http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2020/indexeh.htm …

The year in that URL can be changed to other years. I went through ten of these to get the data.

Here's the data as a CSV file

 https://github.com/jnzst/china-birth-rates 

Some have said this drop is because of changes to Xinjiang's family planning laws in 2017. However, that didn't change the urban 2/rural 3 child limits Uyhgurs have had for years, which were generally obeyed.

: https://twitter.com/jnzst/status/1368521311492837376

 https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/349567562 

John Stone
@jnzstAm I missing something or has this "positive energy patriotic blogger" on zhihu dot com destroyed the CCP's narrative that the recent massive drop in birth rates in Xinjiang is simply due to better family planning?

 https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/349567562 

The narrative: Uyghur women were 'baby making machines' until very recently. Nowadays, there is strict enforcement of family planning policies and the population is 'modernizing' thus the recent drop.

 https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202101/1212073.shtml
 An Analysis Report on Population Change in Xinjiang

But the facts get in the way of this.

In the 2010 census, the Uyghur fertility rate was already around or below the replacement level. This seems a terrible problem for the logic of the CCP. Why add new restrictions that will depress Uyghur births when the population is going to go down long term anyway? Seems bad.


I was trying to find the exact number for the 2010 Uyghur fertility rate when I found the Zhihu post. I've seen two different numbers, 1.842 & 2.035, and can't find anything in the actual census data. Replacement rate is around 2.1.

 https://web.archive.org/web/20140815074407/http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-385383-765643.html

 https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%90%84%E6%B0%91%E6%97%8F%E7%94%9F%E8%82%B2%E7%8E%87%E8%A1%A8

The Global Times article above notably omits the 2010 fertility rate, probably because it's not helpful to the cause to say the fertility rate was around replacement level and then the CCP took drastic action that caused the birth rate in Xinjiang to halve in two years.

GT also has a different number for 2000 than Wikipedia above and Zhihu. I don't know why.

Note:

* Fertility rate: How many children each woman will have on average
* Birth rate: How many births there are in a year for each 1000 people

A common response to this chart from the apologists was changes to the family planning policy in 2017 caused the drop. However, for Uyghurs, the only change seems to be stricter enforcement of the existing urban 2 or rural 3 child limit.

: https://twitter.com/jnzst/status/1364530097701576706