I'm not sure if this helps but it seems that the reduction in birth rates from the census data is inline country-wide trend of decreasing birthrates across China and therefore isn't sufficient evidence for anything.
I understand your concern and agree that it's hard to say. I think the post argues not just a reduction to the national average but also a decrease in national average (12.43 > 10.69) **alongside ** his drop. Although I agree this is a sharper drop, it should be considered that as numbers become lower there will be diminishing returns.
My main point stands that conclusions cannot be drawn on very limited & targeted data sets. For example the birthrate decrease also correlates with a specific poverty alleviation plan for 2016-2020 with an investment of over 100 billion yuan for the first time in 2016 (including 66.7 billion yuan from the central government, an increase of 43.4% year on year and 49.3 billion yuan from local governments, a year-on-year rise of 56.1%) with the goal of eradicating all poverty by 2020. I would hope that the birthrate reduction is because of targeted & ramped up poverty alleviation efforts since it seems like Hotan and Kashgar are poorer areas and poverty is typically associated with higher than average birthrates (of which these areas seem to significantly have). **However it would also be fallacious of me to make that assertion as I am just picking numbers and dates that align to produce a different narrative. **
https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/hi8m92/in_response_to_the_new_antichina_news_on/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I'm not sure if this helps but it seems that the reduction in birth rates from the census data is inline country-wide trend of decreasing birthrates across China and therefore isn't sufficient evidence for anything.
deleted by creator
I understand your concern and agree that it's hard to say. I think the post argues not just a reduction to the national average but also a decrease in national average (12.43 > 10.69) **alongside ** his drop. Although I agree this is a sharper drop, it should be considered that as numbers become lower there will be diminishing returns.
My main point stands that conclusions cannot be drawn on very limited & targeted data sets. For example the birthrate decrease also correlates with a specific poverty alleviation plan for 2016-2020 with an investment of over 100 billion yuan for the first time in 2016 (including 66.7 billion yuan from the central government, an increase of 43.4% year on year and 49.3 billion yuan from local governments, a year-on-year rise of 56.1%) with the goal of eradicating all poverty by 2020. I would hope that the birthrate reduction is because of targeted & ramped up poverty alleviation efforts since it seems like Hotan and Kashgar are poorer areas and poverty is typically associated with higher than average birthrates (of which these areas seem to significantly have). **However it would also be fallacious of me to make that assertion as I am just picking numbers and dates that align to produce a different narrative. **
Sources: https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2018/05/15.pdf, https://isdp.eu/publication/chinas-anti-poverty-efforts-problems-and-progress/
Regardless, I feel reallly uneasy about the increased tensions with China and wish there was less shoddy reporting.