The Chinese official on Monday denied Beijing has imposed coercive birth control measures among Muslim minority women, following an outcry over a tweet by the Chinese Embassy in Washington claiming that government polices had freed women of the Uighur ethnic group from being "baby-making machines."
As a result, the birth rate in Xinjiang’s minority regions plummeted by over 60% in just three years, even as Beijing eases birth restrictions on the Han population ahead of a looming demographic crisis.
Twitter took down the Chinese Embassy's Jan. 7 tweet following protests by groups that accuse Beijing of seeking to eradicate Uighur culture.
The tweet cited a study by Li Xiaoxia, a Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences researcher who has asserted that the birth control measures in Xinjiang are voluntary.
Li’s papers in past years laid the theoretical foundations for justifying mass birth control measures.