Family De-Planning: The Coercive Campaign to Drive Down Indigenous Birth-Rates in Xinjiang
The largest declines have been in counties where Uyghurs and other indigenous communities are concentrated. Across counties that are majority-indigenous the birth-rate fell, on average, by 43.7 percent in a single year between 2017 and 2018. The birth-rate in counties with a 90 percent or greater indigenous population declined by 56.5 percent, on average, in that same year.
In 2017, the Chinese government’s approach to birth control among minority nationalities shifted from “reward and encourage” towards a more coercive and intrusive policing of reproduction processes. Hefty fines, disciplinary punishment, extrajudicial internment, or the threat of internment were introduced for any “illegal births.” Family-planning officials in Xinjiang were told to carry out “early detection and early disposal of pregnant women found in violation of policy.”
While the Chinese government argues it has adopted a uniform family-planning policy in Xinjiang, the county-level natality data suggests these policies are disproportionately affecting areas with a large indigenous population, meaning their application is discriminatory and applied with the intent of reducing the birth-rate of Uyghurs and other religious and ethnic minorities. This policy also stands in stark contrast to the loosening of birth control restrictions elsewhere in China.
Policy implementation documents from Xinjiang explicitly set birth-rate targets that are among the lowest in the world, and the birth-rate has declined from a rate similar to those in neighboring countries such as Mongolia or Kazakhstan to only slightly higher than that of Japan, where the low birth-rate is seen as a “national crisis.”
The sharp drop in birth-rates in Xinjiang (a region with a population of nearly 25 million) is proportionally the most extreme over a two-year period globally since 1950. Despite notable contextual differences, this decline in birth-rate is more than double the rate of decline in Cambodia at the height of the Khmer Rouge genocide (1975-79).
The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, to which China is a signatory, prohibits states from “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group,” as an aspect of the physical element to genocide. Our analysis builds on previous work and provides compelling evidence that Chinese government policies in Xinjiang may constitute an act of genocide; however further research is required to establish the intent and mental element of this crime. We call for the Chinese government to give researchers, journalists and human rights experts full and open access to Xinjiang.
Nathan Ruser is a researcher with ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Center. James Leibold is a non-residentSenior Fellow with ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Center. This article is published courtesy of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).
