Chi­nese offi­cials have offi­cial­ly acknowl­edged birth rates in Xin­jiang dropped by almost a third in 2018, com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year, in a let­ter to CNN in which they also denied reports of forced ster­il­iza­tion and geno­cide by author­i­ties in the far west­ern region.