Drop in Xinjiang birthrate largest in recent history: report

Xinjiang in far western China had the sharpest known decline in birthrates of any territory in recent history

BEIJING -- Xinjiang in far western China had the sharpest known decline in birthrates between 2017 and 2019 of any territory in recent history, according to a new analysis by an Australian think tank. The report from the Australian Strategy Policy Institute, obtained exclusively ahead of publication by The Associated Press, showed the 48.74% decline was concentrated in areas with many Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other largely Muslim ethnic minorities, based on Chinese government statistics over nearly a decade. Birthrates in largely minority counties fell 43.7% between 2017 and 2018 alone, with over 160,000 fewer babies born. That compares to a slight increase in births in counties populated mostly by China's Han majority. Such an extreme drop in birthrates is unprecedented in the 71 years since the United Nations began collecting global fertility statistics, beating out even declines during the Syrian civil war and the genocides in Rwanda and Cambodia, said Nathan Ruser, an ASPI researcher and co-author of the report.