Human rights groups and a number of western governments have in recent years accused China of running a campaign of 'genocide' in Xinjiang province targeted at the region's Uighur Muslim population. Beijing has been accused of forcibly housing over a million Uighurs in internment camps and cracking down on the community's indigenous culture on the pretext of combating Islamic extremists.
On Sunday, the Chinese government released what it termed as a white paper on the population dynamics in Xinjiang to show that the Uighur population had risen substantially since 1953 in both size and quality of life.
The Xinjiang Population Dynamics and Data report is the "first white paper released by the State Council Information Office since 2015 that specifically displays demographic development in Xinjiang for the past seven decades", the Global Times reported. The publication claimed the data refuted the "West's 'genocide' accusation with undeniable facts”.
The white paper lists population growth in Xinjiang, demographic changes in the Uighur community, "factors contributing to Xinjiang's demographic development, the prospects of the regional population, and falsehoods fabricated by anti-China forces", Global Times reported.
"According to preliminary data from the seventh national census in 2020, the total population of Xinjiang was 25.85 million, among which the Han ethnic group numbered 10.92 million, and ethnic minorities 14.93 million. The population of ethnic groups in Xinjiang increased from 4.45 million in 1953 to 14.93 million in 2020," the Global Times quoted the white paper as saying.
"The Uygur population grew at a compound annual growth rate of 1.67 per cent during the first two decades in the 21st century, which was much higher than that of the country's ethnic minority population, which stood at 0.83 per cent. The Uygur population grew from 3.61 million in 1953 to more than 11.62 million in 2020," Global Times reported. The white paper claimed Uighurs accounted for nearly 84 per cent of the population in four prefectures of southern Xinjiang.
Referring to improvements in education, the white paper noted, "in Xinjiang, the average years of education for people aged 15 and above rose from 9.27 in 2010 to 10.11 in 2020, 0.2 years higher than the national average of 9.91, and ranking 10th across China. Compared with 2010, the number of people with a university education rose from 10,613 to 16,536 per 100,000 persons."
In recent years, western experts have accused Chinese authorities of attempting to forcibly lower fertility rates among Uighurs through measures such as insertion of intrauterine devices, sterilisation and abortions.
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The white paper attempts to counter these allegations by claiming the "change of fertility patterns is the result of development in the fields of education and health, the implementation of laws and de-radicalization".
China has been accused of encouraging mass migration of the predominant Han Chinese community to Xinjiang in recent decades to dilute the Uighur minority population there. The same method has been used in Tibet. Previous reports have noted the growth rate in the Han population in Xinjiang has been higher than that of Uighurs from 2010 to 2020. From 2010 to 2020, the Han population in Xinjiang grew by 25 per cent, while the Uighur population grew by 16 per cent.
