A new report from me and @jleibold. We found that the precipitous and unprecedented decrease in Xinjiang's birth-rate since 2017 has disproportionately come from Uyghur areas. Drastic decreases in indigenous-majority areas, roughly stable in Han areas. aspi.org.au/report/family-…
In late April 2017 the Party Secretary of Xinjiang convened a meeting and instructed local officials to "reduce fertility... at a moderate level" focusing specifically on the four Uyghur-majority Southern Prefectures, ensuring the officials "contain illegal births".
2/
Since then, the birth-rate in Xinjiang has dropped from about 125% the national birth-rate (a ratio that had been relatively stable since 1990) to less than 80%. 3/
By 2019, the birth rate in Xinjiang had fallen by almost half (48.74%) since 2017. See this tweet by @jnzst.
What we found, when we drilled in deeper and at a finer geographic scale, was that almost all of this decline was coming from counties in Xinjiang with a large indigenous proportion of the population. 5/
Compared to the 48.7% decline overall in Xinjiang, among the Indigenous-majority counties that had published 2019 or 2020 birth-rate figures (these are increasingly hidden), the birth-rate fell 58.5% compared to a pre-crackdown baseline.
Counties 90%+ indigenous fell 66.3%. 6/
The birth rate in Hotan county (خوتەن ناھىيىسى) is 99.4% indigenous fell from 25.4 per thousand in 2012 to 7.4 in 2019, a decline of over 70%.
Kashgar city (قەشقەر) fell from 41.8 in 2017 to 6.5 in 2019 (archive.vn/R3yq8), an 85% decline.
7/
These two graphs show the extremely clear correlation between the birth-rate decline since 2017 and the indigenous proportion of counties and Prefectures. The first graph shows complete figures from 2018 and the second is partial figures from 2019.
/8
What we found was that in 2018, among Uyghur-majority counties (and other indigenous nationalities), there were 162,700 fewer children born than would've been expected if the birth-rate stayed stable.
In Han majority counties, 1000 more babies were born (so roughly stable).
/9
In an interview with state media, the deputy mayor of Bay county said it was important to "punish and punish resolutely" those who violated increasingly strict birth-control policies. "Never tolerate, never soften".
/10
These policies and extremely coercive enforcement tactics (extreme fines, extrajudicial detention ect) are efforts by party officials to "alter and optimise the ethnic structure" of Xinjiang, archive.is/jH8ab
/11
In Chapchal County, over a four month period in 2017, officials collected nearly $1mil USD in fines from women in the county who violated family planning policies (from around 630 women). archive.is/iPIRT
/12
Violations of family planning policies and failure to pay associated fines was the most frequently cited reason for people being detained in the leaked Karakash List.
See @adrianzenz' figure here jpolrisk.com/karakax/
/13
These policies, the eugenic-inspired rationale behind them and government statistics demonstrate that these declines in birth-rates are disproportionately affecting indigenous communities and appear to be systematically discriminatory and aiming to reduce births among Uyghurs
/14
The determination of genocide requires an assessment on the mental element of the crime (intent) which we can't offer any assesment about, but this research solidly suggests these policies may constitute acts of genocide under clause D, article II of the genocide convention.
/15
Which - to be clear - only goes any of the way in demonstrating the physical element of the crime - independent assessments are necessary to establish the mental element of genocide to whatever evidentiary standard governments and policy makers deem appropriate.
/16
Internationally, however, this drop is remarkable and unprecidented, even among countries during the midst of some of the 20th century's worst genocides. During the worst of the Khmer Rouge genocide, the birth-rate among women aged 20-28 declined 22% in 2 years. Vs 49% in XJ.
/17
Over the course of two years, the birth-rate in Xinjiang has declined from being similar to neighbouring countries (such as Kazakhstan or Japan) to being almost as low as Japan's birth-rate, a country facing a "national crisis" with their birth-rate.
/18
The policies towards childbirth for Uyghurs (et al) in XJ sharply contrast with the policy direction of China more generally, which now reguarly talks about the necessity of encouraging and incentivising births across the country (if you're not Uyghur) pbc.gov.cn/redianzhuanti/…
/19
Several Chinese provinces likely provide more relevant benchmarks to Xinjiang than the national average, but even among Ningxia, Qinghai & Yunnan (similar demographics) and Sichuan, Jiangxi & Shanxi (similar economics), Xinjiang CLEARLY stands out.
/20
The increasing sparcity of Chinese statistics has proved a massive barrier to research in these areas. Before 2017 (pictured is 2014), official data separated the overall birth-rate and "minority" birth-rate by county. Unsurprisingly, this stopped following the crackdown.
/21
The latest statistical yearbook (2020 for 2019 data) simply stopped releasing any breakdown of the region's birth-rate. This is why we have had to rely on finding data on individual county websites, where about 50 published 2019/2020 rates.
See
Surprisingly, Chinese state propaganda actually agrees with a lot of our findings, but frames them differently. In a widely promoted article addressing Zenz' previous research on the topic, sociologist Li Xiaoxia confirms these declines. chinadaily.com.cn/a/202101/07/WS…
/23
Li Xiaoxia also claims that previously high-birthrates (when XJ's birth-rate was similar to neighbouring countries) were due to “religious extremists” who “bewitched or even coerced people” into marriage and child birth. Also neatly proving our point.
/24
But I'm certain that the Chinese government will continue to 'refute' these findings (that were based entirely off of official statistics) using misleading statistics, other forms of misinformation and ad-hominem attacks.
/25
But the reality of these statistics is hard to explain away without mention the highly discriminatory birthing restrictions for indigenous communities in Xinjiang. Which is likely why they've simply stopped publishing these statistics...
/26
... (@BadChinaTake had a good deleted thread on this - pressure him to repost it)
I consider these findings highly relevant to determinations of genocide in Xinjiang. I believe that this research provides the most compelling evidence so far that these birth-control policies amount to acts of genocide (and qualify for the physical element of genocide).
/27
It is then up to individual governments and others to make a determination about the mental element of genocide - something that OSINT cannot begin to prove to an ICJ standard - based on the balance of probabilities and the information we do have available
/28.
Additionally, @dtbyler, @GroseTimothy, @PLMattis, @xu_xiuzhong and @adrianzenz are all magnets for primary source documents and were a massive help in supplementing what we were able to find and fleshing out parts of the report!
/31
Finally, check out the cover art, which is altered from a wonderful photograph of a young girl in Kashgar by @mimokhair. She is obscured by a family-planning target document from Uchturpan county and her face has been replaced with a mostly-AI-generated composite face.
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This is a good thread to read that contextualises some of the UN population data projections. I'll try to elaborate more tomorrow, but in the meantime certainly read this.
I'll add that this was mostly included to contextualise the data and at no point is a one to one comparison accurate given the variety of statistics measures and methods to get there. We specifically tried to look at a source for Cambodia that was more detailed...
...and in my opinion likely overstates the genocide's effect on the birth-rate (it only looks at the birth-rate among women of peak childbirth age so any variation will be overstated), and still demonstrates that Xinjiang's decline far surpasses it.
The Turkish representative to the UN came in with an unsually strong statement at the High-Level UN meeting on Xinjiang. Welcome to see, hoping they back it up and end the process of ratification of an extradition treaty with China. Rough notes from their statement below ⬇⬇
The protection of fundemental rights for Uyghurs is a special interest for Turkey
We want to see them live in peace and prosperity as equal citizens, with their full rights and freedoms protected by law....
Their freedoms must be respected and guaranteed
they should be allowed to preserve their cultures and identity for generations to come.
The ongoing practices of extreme human rights violations are extremely worrying....
The massive fire spreading across Camps 08W, 09 & Jomer Chora in Cox's Bazar burnt nearly 64ha of structures, displaced approx 44,860 people and almost entirely burnt 89 majhee blocks (partially burnt another 32). Absolutely massive & devastating.
Imagery thanks to @planetlabs.
Hey look, this Assadist masquarading as a legitimate scholar (but really about as far from it as they come) is also dabbling in Xinjiang denialism by sharing grayzone blogposts.
Birds of a feather...
and I cant think of any more dispicable than this crowd.
There are really no words to describe how much dearth these crowds have for humanity, or any sense of morality and would rather spin a tale where mass-murdering dictators can do no wrong. It's insulting, it's gross, and it has ABSOLUTELY no place in the discourse.
I'm waiting for Landis to chime in with his 'I'm just sharing points of view' spiel he does whenever he endorses rivisionist and denialist posts, but that pseudo-innocence is no more legitimate than the nazi who claimed his recording nazi-audiobooks was just food for thought.
Drone footage (7DayNews) from Mandalay shows a column of roughly 50 Burmese security force officers shooting into a crowd from the gates of Yadanarbon Shipyard. At 13s a person appears to be fatally shot (under the lamppost - 21.9624, 96.0559). At least 2 people were killed here.
The footage shows that security forces fired from at most 30m away from the person who appears to have been killed, while they were hiding behind some parked motorcycles and posing no threat to the officers. Along with live rounds, flash-bangs and (potentially) tear gas was used.
Photos from their reporters show Tatamadaw soliders holding locally made sniper rifles, AK-clones and shotguns.
Chinese state media tonight released some footage from one of the clashes along the Galwan river that took place on June 15th. It's tricky to geolocate but my best idea (explained below) is that it shows Chinese forces SLIGHTY (<50m) beyond their interpretation of the LAC.
You can see Indian forces walking along the South side of the valley in this footage before reaching a rock and crossing the river. I believe that rock is approximately here (in green):