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Commentary: "Forced sterilization" in Xinjiang sheer nonsense

(Xinhua)    10:08, September 08, 2020

BEIJING, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- Adrian Zenz is a true expert who specializes in distorting facts and concocting rumors about China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region through his shoddy and biased research.

One-sidedly quoting data and reports with ulterior motives, the so-called German scholar on Xinjiang has claimed in his report that "Xinjiang's natural population growth has declined dramatically," and made libelous allegations that the region used forced sterilization methods.

As a matter of fact, the growth of the Uygur ethnic group is higher than that of the total population of the region, and the rights of ethnic minorities, including Uygur people, have been fully guaranteed. The claims of "forced sterilization" in Xinjiang are nothing but sheer nonsense.

According to a report by the Xinjiang Development Research Center, from 2010 to 2018, the Uygur population increased by 2.55 million, or 25.04 percent, to 12.72 million. Over the past nearly 70 years, the Uygur population in the autonomous region has quadrupled.

Zenz claimed women like Zamira Dawut were forced by the government to undergo compulsory sterilization.

The fact contradicts his saying. Zamira Dawut gave birth to her third child in the maternal and child care service center in the regional capital Urumqi and signed a consent form voluntarily in March 2013, firmly requesting "to have a cesarean section and tubal ligation."

The center subsequently conducted the operation as she requested. She was never sterilized, nor did she undergo a "uterus removal" as she claimed, said Iljan Anagyit, spokesperson for the information office of the regional government.

As shown by world population development trends, with every improvement in economic and social development come a corresponding improvement in the people's sense of self-worth and a decrease in the natural population growth rate.

Nearly 3 million residents were lifted out of poverty in Xinjiang from 2014 to 2019, with the region's poverty rate decreasing to 1.24 percent in 2019 from 19.4 percent in 2013. The few remaining impoverished residents will be lifted out of poverty this year.

With the success of the poverty reduction and economic and social development initiatives in Xinjiang, the living conditions and educational backgrounds of people of all ethnic groups in the region have fundamentally improved. This has promoted a steady improvement in local residents' quality of life.

As urbanization proceeds, an increasing number of people of different ethnic groups in the region voluntarily choose to delay marriage and childbirth and have fewer but healthier babies.

The region's maternal mortality rate has fallen to 26.65 per 100,000 people in 2018 from 43.41 per 100,000 in 2010. The infant mortality rate also dropped to 14.02 per 1,000 from 26.58 per 1,000 in the period, official statistics show.

As a provincial-level region of China, Xinjiang implements the national family planning policy in accordance with the law. The region has never formulated or implemented a family planning policy targeting a single minority group.

Objective figures never tell lies, but so-called scholars like Adrian Zenz, backed by certain shadowy powers, do as they attempt to sabotage the stability and development of Xinjiang, interfere in China's internal affairs and contain China's development via fabricating so-called "human rights" issues.

Nobody should be fooled or misled by such despicable and unscrupulous figures as Adrian Zenz and his backers.

(For the latest China news, Please follow People's Daily on Twitter and Facebook)(Web editor: Wen Ying, Liang Jun)

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