Executive Summary

The demographic structure of East Turkistan has shifted dramatically since the Chinese occupation in late 1949. Determining the exact population of East Turkistan remains a contentious issue, as the Chinese government frequently manipulates statistics as a tool of control. These official figures often understate the true size of East Turkistan’s Uyghur and other Turkic populations. Additionally, no truly reliable and satisfactory census has been conducted.

In 2020, Chinese state media reported that the Uyghur population numbered 12,718,400 in 2018.^1 However, in a 2021 white paper, the Chinese government claimed that the total population of East Turkistan in 2020 was 25.85 million, with 13.5 million people identified as Uyghur, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz, and further stated that the Uyghur population alone was 11,678,600.^2

In the same white paper, the Chinese government claimed that in 2020, there were 11.09 million Chinese colonists (Han and Hui) and approximately 500,000 people belonging to other smaller ethnic groups, such as Mongols, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Tatars.^2 The Xinjiang Statistical Yearbook 2019, however, put the Chinese colonist population at 8.8 million, implying a 3.1 million increase of Han Chinese colonists within one year.^3 Simultaneously, over 1 million Uyghurs disappeared from the statistics between 2018 and 2019.

Due to the PRC’s longstanding practice of manipulating statistics and underreporting the population of non-Chinese peoples, the East Turkistani people reject the so-called “official” Chinese figures regarding the Turkic population of East Turkistan. Many Uyghur scholars, writers, and activists in the diaspora estimate that the Turkic population of East Turkistan ranges between 25 and 35 million.^4

The East Turkistan Government in Exile, drawing from historical population data and other sources, estimates that East Turkistan’s overall Turkic population may have exceeded 40 million prior to the formal start of China’s genocide against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in 2014. This substantial and “unmanageable” Turkic population likely alarmed Chinese authorities, prompting the launch of the ongoing genocide to reduce the East Turkistani population to a “more manageable” size, such as the 13.5 million figure officially promoted by the Chinese government.

1. East Turkistan’s Population Throughout History

Throughout most of history, East Turkistan has been home to two racial groups: Indo-European peoples and Hun-Turkic peoples. Since the end of the Ice Age, the population of East Turkistan consisted primarily of Indo-European peoples in the Tarim Basin.^5 By around 3000 BCE, East Turkistan’s population consisted of Indo-European peoples in the east and south, and proto-Hunnic / Turkic peoples in the north.

By the 2nd century BCE, the Huns (“Xiongnu”), Uysun (“Wusun”), and other proto-Turkic peoples ruled the north.^6 The advent of the Kök Turks in the 6th century CE, under the Indo-European Ashina clan, reinforced Turkic control in the northern and western regions. However, East Turkistan’s pre-existing demographic structure remained largely unchanged.

In the 9th century, the establishment of the Turkic Qarakhanid and Idiqut Uyghur Kingdoms led to a gradual cultural and demographic blending between the Turkic and Indo-European peoples of the Tarim Basin.^7 Despite initially being vassals of the Mongol Empire, and later being ruled by Turkified Mongols under the Chaghatay Khanate, the people of East Turkistan largely remained Turkic and Indo-European.

By the end of the 16th century, the peoples of the former Idiqut Uyghur State in the central-eastern part of East Turkistan had unified with the peoples of the Yarkent Khanate in the south and west. This union led to the complete cultural and demographic integration of Indo-European and Turkic peoples in the Tarim and Turpan Basins, resulting in the emergence of a hybrid Turkic-Indo-European people and culture, now known as Uyghurs.^8 Uyghur and Kazakh tribes also inhabited the modern Junggar Basin in the north.

This demographic structure remained largely stable until the Oirat Mongols (Junggars) arrived in the 16th century, displacing many Uyghur and Kazakh tribes and forcing them to relocate to the south and west. The Junggars ruled northern East Turkistan and made southern East Turkistan a tributary state from the late 17th to the mid-18th centuries.^9

The Manchu invasion between 1756 and 1759 led to the annihilation of the Junggars and marked the beginning of a century of Manchu military occupation. Following a series of resistance movements by the people of East Turkistan against Manchu occupation, the Manchus began colonizing East Turkistan by settling Sibe (Xibe) military colonists, as well as Han and Hui (Chinese Muslim) colonists.^10

After 42 consecutive uprisings, the peoples of East Turkistan restored their independence in 1865 as the State of Yette Sheher under the leadership of Yaqub Beg, expelling the Manchu invaders and prompting the flight of most Chinese colonists.^11 However, in 1876, the Manchus again re-invaded East Turkistan and formally annexed it in 1884 as “Xinjiang [Colony / New Territory].” As a result, Chinese colonists (Han and Hui) were once again settled in the eastern and northern parts of East Turkistan.^12

Following the collapse of the Manchu Qing Empire in 1911, East Turkistan fell under the nominal control of Chinese warlords. In 1931, a national liberation movement erupted in East Turkistan, and on November 12, 1933, the Turkic-Islamic Republic of Turkistan (TIRET) was established with Kashgar as its capital. Chinese warlords, with the backing of the Russian and Chinese governments, overthrew the TIRET in April 1934.^13

A second East Turkistan Republic was established in the Ili Valley on November 12, 1944.^14 The second ETR fought against the Chinese Guomindang forces, who had arrived in 1943 to occupy and colonize East Turkistan. Following the Chinese Communist invasion on October 12, 1949, East Turkistan came under Chinese occupation, which continues today.^36 At the time of the Chinese Communist takeover, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Indo-European and Turkic peoples made up more than 90% of the population, while Chinese colonists—mostly soldiers and officials—comprised less than 5%.^15

2. Historical Population Data (1910–1953)

The Chinese government’s revisionist statistics regarding East Turkistan’s Turkic population are inconsistent with historical population figures. Abdurreshid Ibrahim, a Tatar journalist and traveler who visited East Turkistan in 1910, estimated that the population of Turkic peoples in the 1910s was approximately 12 million.^16 In 1915, Ahmet Kemal, presumably a Turkish intellectual dispatched to East Turkistan along with several Ottoman military officers to serve as teachers, recorded that the Turkic population at the time was 10 million.^17

In 1922, Chinese warlord Yang Zexin, who ruled East Turkistan after the fall of the Manchu Empire in 1912, estimated the population at 5 million.^18 In 1931, the Chinese colonial administration led by Jin Shuren assessed the population at 6 million, but in 1937, the Urumchi postal administration estimated 8 million.^18

In 1934, a memorandum prepared for the Communist International (Comintern) stated that existing estimates were inaccurate, asserting that East Turkistan’s true population was between 14 and 15 million, with Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and Mongols constituting over 90%.^19 In 1941, the Sheng Shicai administration claimed a total population of 4,730,051, with Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz constituting more than 91%.^20 Uyghurs alone numbered 2,984,000, or 80% of the total.^20

An official publication of the East Turkistan Republic in late 1946 stated there were 7 million Turkic peoples in East Turkistan.^21 After occupying East Turkistan in December 1949, Mao Zedong declared that 9 million Turkic peoples resided in the territory.^22 However, in the 1953 PRC census, the population was reported as only 4,874,000, with nearly 90% being Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples.^8 Uyghurs numbered 3,640,000, or 75%.^8 Chinese colonists (Han and Hui) made up approximately 9%, with Han at 6% and Hui at 3%.^8

3. Assessing the True Size of East Turkistan’s Turkic Population

Aside from Mao Zedong’s estimate of 9 million Turkic peoples in late 1949,^21 the Chinese government has consistently underreported the size of East Turkistan’s Turkic population. This policy aimed to prevent Turkic peoples from resisting Chinese occupation.

Until 2014, the Chinese government struggled to curtail the high natural growth rate of the Turkic population. Turkic families generally had four or more children per family prior to the ongoing genocide against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples.^23

This demographic growth concerned Chinese authorities, especially as East Turkistan experienced uprisings and calls for independence.^24 A report from the early 1990s stated:

“If the Muslim population of the Xinjiang Region [East Turkistan] continues to grow at its present rate, it will double in less than thirty years… With a mean annual rate of growth of 2.5% (compared to 1.5% for the Han), we estimate that the Turkic-speaking Muslim population of the Xinjiang Region (Uighur, Kazakh, Kirgiz) would double by 2020 to 18 million, giving it a nearly 70% majority in this Autonomous Region.”^24

Historical Chinese statistics claimed the combined Turkic population grew at a mean rate of 2.7% from the 1960s to the 1990s, dropping to 2.5% by the 21st century.^24 From 2010–2016, the average growth rate was 10.95%, sharply declining after 2014 to 3.49% by 2019.^25

The Chinese government falsely claims Uyghurs grew at 1.6% annually over the last two decades, inconsistent with high birth rates, e.g., Khoten (98% Uyghur) recorded 20 births per 1,000 people in 2017.^25

Based on historical growth: starting from 7 million in 1946, with a 2.5% annual growth rate, the Turkic population in 2014 would be ~38.5 million. Starting from Mao’s 1949 estimate of 9 million, the population would reach ~44.8 million in 2014.

Further evidence comes from Chinese state media: between 2016–2017, DNA samples were collected from 36 million people in East Turkistan aged 12–65, suggesting a population much larger than official statistics indicate.^26

Citations:

1. China Daily. 2020. “So‑Called Xinjiang Population Report Full of Lies.” China Daily (Global Edition), September 4, 2020. https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202009/04/WS5f517c1ca310675eafc576cc.html
2. CGTN, “Graphics: Facts about Xinjiang’s Population and Ethnic Groups,” September 2, 2022, https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-09-02/Graphics-Facts-about-Xinjiang-s-population-and-ethnic-groups-1cvVZvrnuI8/index.html.
3. Xinjiang Statistical Yearbook 2019 (Urumchi: Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Bureau of Statistics, 2019).
4. Mettursun Beydulla, “Experiences of Uyghur Migration to Turkiye and the United States: Issues of Religion, Law, Society, Residence, and Citizenship,” in Migration and Islamic Ethics (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 175.
5. Tom Metcalfe, “Bronze Age Tarim mummies aren’t who scientists thought they were,” LiveScience, April 27, 2021, https://www.livescience.com/tarim-mummies-origins-uncovered
6. Shiji [Records of the Grand Historian], Han Dynasty, compiled 91 BCE.
7. James Millward, Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang, revised and updated edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 2021), 15.
8. Stanley Toops, “The Population Landscape of Xinjiang/East Turkestan,” Inner Asia 2, no. 2 (2000): 155–70, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23615555.
9. Anara Tabyshalieva and Madhavan K. Palat, History of Civilizations of Central Asia (Paris: UNESCO, 1992), 193.
10. Nick Holdstock, China’s Forgotten People: Xinjiang, Terror and the Chinese State (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019), 23–24.
11. Justin Ben-Adam et al., Oasis Identities: Uyghur Nationalism along China’s Silk Road (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 27.
12. David Brophy, Uyghur Nation: Reform and Revolution on the Russia-China Frontier (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016), 72.
13.  Ondřej Klimeš, “Nationalism and Modernism in the East Turkestan Republic, 1933–34,” Central Asian Survey 34, no. 2 (2015): 162–76, https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2014.976947.
14. Linda Benson, The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang, 1944–1949 (London: Routledge, 2020).
15. Gardner Bovingdon, Autonomy in Xinjiang: Han Nationalist Imperatives and Uyghur Discontent (Honolulu: East-West Center, 2004), 24.
16. Abdurreşîd İbrâhîm, Islam Dunyasi (The Islamic World), ed. Mehmed Paksu, vol. 2 (Istanbul: Yeni Asya Yayınları, 1987), 110.
17. Ahmet Kemal, Çin-Türkistan Hatıraları [China-Turkistan Memories], compiled by Dr. Yusuf Gedikli (Istanbul: Otuken, 1997), 45.
18. Ildikó Bellér-Hann, Community Matters in Xinjiang, 1880–1949: Towards a Historical Anthropology of the Uyghur (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 63.
19. Umar Islamov, memorandum, Reporting Note, March 15, 1934, RGASPI, f. 514, o. 1, d. 1075, l. 44.
20. Chang Hih-Yi, “Land Utilization and Settlement Possibilities in Sinkiang,” Geographical Review 39, no. 1 (1949): 57–75.
21. U.S. Department of State, Division of Chinese Affairs, “Signs of Unrest in Tihwa,” American Consul J. Hall Paxton to the Secretary of State, Urumchi, January 13, 1947, enclosure no. 2.
22. Jamil Hasanli, Soviet Policy in Xinjiang: Stalin and the National Movement in Eastern Turkistan (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2021), 17.
23. Xiaowei Zang, Islam, Family Life, and Gender Inequality in Urban China (Abingdon, UK: Taylor & Francis, 2012), 13.
24. Attané, Isabelle, and Youssef Courbage. “Transitional Stages and Identity Boundaries: The Case of Ethnic Minorities in China.” Population and Environment 21, no. 3 (2000): 257–80. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27503703. 
25. Mo Yu, “Chinese Statistics Reveal Plummeting Births in Xinjiang During Crackdown on Uyghurs,” VOA News, March 27, 2021, https://www.voanews.com/a/east-asia-pacific_voa-news-china_chinese-statistics-reveal-plummeting-births-xinjiang-during/6203821.html.
26. Sui-Lee Wee, “China Uses DNA to Track Its People, With the Help of American Expertise,” The New York Times, February 21, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/business/china-xinjiang-uighur-dna-thermo-fisher.html