Chinese birth-control policies could reduce the ethnic minority population in southern Xinjiang by up to a third over the next 20 years, according to new analysis by a German researcher.
The analysis concluded that regional policies could cut between 2.6 and 4.5 million minority births in that time.
China has been accused by some Western nations of genocide in Xinjiang, partly through forced birth-control measures.
China denies the allegations, saying birth-rate declines have other causes.
The new study, by researcher Adrian Zenz, is the first such peer-reviewed academic paper on the long-term population impact of China’s crackdown on the Uyghurs and other minority groups in Xinjiang.
It found that under China’s birth-control policies in the region, the population of ethnic minorities in southern Xinjiang would reach somewhere between 8.6 and 10.5 million by 2040, compared to 13.1 million projected by Chinese researchers before Beijing’s crackdown.
“This [research and analysis] really shows the intent behind the Chinese government’s long-term plan for the Uyghur population,” Mr Zenz told the Reuters news agency, which first reported the study.
In his report, Mr Zenz writes that by 2019 Xinjiang authorities “planned to subject at least 80% of women of childbearing age in the rural southern four minority prefectures to intrusive birth prevention surgeries, referring to IUDs or sterilisations”.
Experts believe that China has detained at least a million Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang, and the government faces accusations of attempting to reduce and assimilate the minority Muslim population there.
Reports also say authorities have intentionally moved people from the mainstream Han Chinese population into parts of Xinjiang previously dominated by ethnic minorities, and forcibly transferred Uyghurs out.