Li Xiaoxia, Special Researcher, Xinjiang Development Research Center

Recently, the population problem in Xinjiang has attracted much attention. In particular, the German anti-China scholar Zheng Guoen (English name Adrian B. Citing data from unknown sources, Zengz, cobbled together a study entitled Sterilization, Intrauterine Birth Control and Mandatory Family Planning: The Communist Party's Campaign to Suppress the Birth Rate of Uighurs in Xinjiang, claiming that “the natural population growth in Xinjiang has declined sharply” and denigrating the so-called “forced sterilization” problem in Xinjiang. In view of the report's erroneous viewpoint and absurd logic, this paper combs through the situation of population change in Xinjiang, analyzes the reasons for the rapid population growth in southern Xinjiang, and expounds the rationality of the trend of population change in Xinjiang.

At the time of the country's first census in 1953, the total population of Xinjiang was 4.8736 million, and at the time of the sixth national census in 2010, the total population of Xinjiang was 21.8158 million, an increase of nearly 3.3 times in 57 years. In recent years, the total population of Xinjiang has continued to grow steadily, and statistics show that between 2010 and 2018, the ethnic minority population and the uyghur population in xinjiang have grown steadily, and the han population in xinjiang has increased slightly. In terms of population, the resident population of Xinjiang rose from 21.8158 million to 24.8676 million between 2010 and 2018, an increase of 3.0518 million, or 13.99 percent. Among them: the ethnic minority population rose from 12.9859 million to 15.8608 million, an increase of 2.8749 million, an increase of 22.14 percent The number rose to 12.7184 million, an increase of 2.5469 million, or 25.04 per cent, and the Han population rose from 8.8299 million to 9.068 million, an increase of 176.9 million, an increase of 2.0 per cent. The growth rate of the Uighur population is not only higher than that of the whole territory, but also higher than that of other ethnic minorities, and significantly higher than that of the Han population. In terms of growth region, the population of the four southern states increased from 895.1 million to 10.355 million between 2010 and 2018, an increase of 1.404 million, an increase of 13.55 percent, the fastest in the whole territory.