Made the mistake of engaging with an anti China robot on an Indian left subreddit. When I asked for evidence for genocide they gave me this AP News article as proof of genocide. I wanted to discuss this article because it has the veneer of being scientific because it uses graphs so people jump on these to confirm their biases. But my grasp of statistics is weak so please feel free to criticise.
The article has two graphs:
- Birth rates vs. time of China, Xinjiang and two Xinjiang cities
- Sterilization (per 100,000) of the same as above
Basically it shows that birth rates started dropping around 2016, same time at which sterilization rates spiked. Their conclusion is that it’s a genocide.
The problem is that this is the common correlation being mistaken as causation “mistake”. I’m quoting mistake because this was probably done maliciously on purpose.
First thing is that sterilization rates are not the only factor determining birth rates. There are countless other factors as well. The article intentionally omits it because it’s a Zenz piece. Second is that, at it’s peak the sterilization rate is 250 per 100,000. I think this number is too low to genocide a population but I am not confident about this so feel free to correct me. Third is that at the end of this genocide, the birth rates on Xinjiang are level with the national average. This is a pretty terrible attempt at genocide because it still indicates a growing population.
My understanding of this situation is that Xinjiang was underdeveloped and neglected before, leading to much higher birth rates than the national average because the family planning policies were not strictly enforced. After CPC started giving it attention to root out extremism, they identified underdevelopment as an issue, and high birth rates as a hindrance to development, hence they started applying the family planning policies more strictly.
I have seen some people attribute the drop in birth rate to development. I think it’s an important factor but it works in tandem with state enforced family planning policies. I mention this because I don’t want to suggest that the drop in birth rate is something that happened “naturally”, just that it is not genocide.
Edit: Numbers about the sterilization rates:
- Population of Xinjiang (estimate for 2019): 25,230,000
- Estimate female population (~50%): 12,615,000
- Peak sterilization rate: 0.25%
- Sterilized women: 31,539
- Unsterilized women: 12,583,461
Also this says nothing about whether women are being sterilized before or after children. I am pretty sure it’s the latter.
There’s a response by a Chinese paper using the same Statistical Yearbooks here: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202101/1212073.shtml
On the decline in birth rates:
- “According to the 2017 amendment of the Population and Family Planning Ordinance of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang enjoy equal rights in family planning.”
Before 2017, Uyghur people were allowed to have more children than the Han majority.
- "The mindset on marriage and procreation has been shifted. … deeply influenced by the conception of ‘the fewer and the better,’ many married women of ethnic minorities in rural areas were able to go out finding jobs to earn more money, so the previous life cycle of ‘marriage-maternity-farming’ has been broken and their status in family has been greatly enhanced, women have more chance than before to decide whether to have babies. "
So, development, as you said.
- “Religious extremism has been effectively curbed. … In the process of eradicating extremism, the minds of some women were emancipated, the scientific consciousness of gender equality and reproductive health has been promoted, making women not being reproduction machines any more.”
The fight against religious extremism has eroded the patriarchy and allowed women more independence.
As for the sterilizations graph, even the AP article says that “starting in 2016, the Xinjiang government began pumping tens of millions of dollars into a birth control surgery program and cash incentives for women to get sterilized.” So it’s not forced sterilizations, it’s cash incentives. Make something free and people will use it. The same thing happened in the US after Obama made contraceptives free: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29544988/
Yeah these are all great points.
What I hate about talking with bots the most is that there is a distinct lack of critical thinking. Any arguments are refuted by:
- Your post history is defending China
- This source is Chinese state media
The guy who owned me by linking this news article about a Zenz research explicitly said “don’t say it’s because of development. in any normal country it would take about ten years for this to take effect.” I stopped wasting my time with them because they pejoratively called me tankie multiple times so it looked like brainworms had completely taken hold of their consciousness.
One thing I wanted to show is that even with presumptions this article makes, even taking into account its own numbers in vacuum, they don’'t hold any water.
Bold of them to quote Zenz and then complain about biased media.
in any normal country it would take about ten years
And in any normal country it would take about ten weeks to build a hospital, but we’re not talking about a normal country. China can move fast if it wants to.
With the current state of capitalist countries, the “normal” is to let underdeveloped regions writhe in poverty so that they provide cheap labour to urban centres. I can’t think of any development that is taking place in India. All there is are token projects in urban regions like constructing a metro/subway line so that the ruling party can claim credit for it. In the US rural areas are being deserted.
These clowns cannot comprehend what development looks like.
One more thing: The first graph shows a separate line for Hotan and Kashgar. There was a major earthquake in Kashgar in 2008: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashgar#People’s_Republic_of_China It was unexpectedly lethal because “Many of the old houses in the old town were built without regulation, and as a result, officials found them to be overcrowded and non-compliant with fire and earthquake codes.”
So China relocated the population in order to demolish and rebuild unsafe housing. Probably younger and less-privileged people were over-represented in this unregulated housing. That could explain the sharper drop in birth rates.
