In a report published on Tuesday, June 8, 2021, the British newspaper, The Independent, quoted Adrian Zenz, an independent Chinese researcher, as saying that Beijing was committing a “slow-motion genocide” against the Uyghurs, by deliberately preventing millions of births through birth control compulsory.
A new study estimates that the Chinese Communist Party could prevent up to 4.5 million Uyghur childbirths in southern Xinjiang by 2040.
So what about the birth rate study?
Adrian Zenz, an independent Chinese researcher, arrived at this estimate by studying the region’s birth rate and looking at China’s “population improvement” policies that target ethnic minorities.
While birth rates have fallen sharply in Xinjiang in recent years, as a result of forced sterilization and IUD insertion, measures such as forced labor transfers have reduced population growth.
These are just two aspects of the larger crackdown on Uyghurs, which has seen more than a million people arrested since 2017, by the Chinese Communist Party, and transferred to internment camps under the pretext of fighting terrorism.
The decrease in newborns
As part of Zenz’s latest findings, a senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, the Uighur population in southern Xinjiang will likely reach between 8.6 and 10.5 million in 2040, roughly the same as it is now.
This is well below the 13.4 million that Chinese academics had predicted before their country imposed birth control policies on Uighurs and other ethnic minorities.
China has dismissed the allegations of genocide, calling Mr. Zenz’s research “useless” and “credible”. Beijing maintains its policies in Xinjiang, aimed at combating extremism and alleviating poverty.
In his paper, Zenz also cites statements made by academics and Communist Party officials between 2014 and 2020, which demonstrated China’s goal of reducing the Uyghur population, a decision the party claims is in China’s national security interest.
The transfer of new residents
To that end, in 2017 the central government tasked the region’s Communist Party with increasing the number of Han residents in Xinjiang by 300,000 by 2022.
Although the “integration” of a large Han population into Uyghur regions helps greatly reduce the density of ethnic minority groups, alone it’s not enough, according to Chinese researchers in Xinjiang.
Li Xiaoxia, director of the Institute of Sociology at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, has said publicly that birth control is the best solution to the “rapid growth problem of the minority population,” which she blames for fostering extremism.
Similarly, Liu Yili, deputy general secretary of the Party Committee of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Sector, said at a seminar in July 2020, that progress and stability in the region can only be achieved by reducing the proportion of Uighurs there.
The problem of demographic balance
The proportion of the Han population in the region is very low, at less than 15%. Yili said the problem of demographic imbalance is the main issue in southern Xinjiang.
Zenz argues that such comments, when combined with demographic trends stemming from Chinese repression in Xinjiang, show the CCP’s genocidal intent against the Uighurs.
“A very strong case for genocide can be made in slow motion over time,” he told The Independent in May 2021 in an interview about his latest research.
He added that “the destruction of a group does not necessarily require mass killing.” This view is consistent with the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which includes birth control as a possible definition of genocide.
The Uyghur court report
Zenz’s latest research, which he submitted to London’s Independent Uyghur Court, will be published Monday, 7 June, in the Central Asian Survey.
Whereas the Uyghur Court was established to assess allegations of genocide against China because international courts would not hear a case against China. After several hearings in June and September, she will issue her ruling in 2022, which will not be legally binding.
In late April 2021, the UK followed the example of countries such as the US and Canada by declaring a genocide against the Uighurs in Xinjiang.
