Coercive policies in China's far western region of Xinjiang have led to a sharp decline in birth rates for Uyghurs and other minorities, which could add to evidence of genocide, an Australian think tank said in a report released on Wednesday.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) report, citing official Chinese data, said that there has been an "unprecedented and precipitous drop in official birth-rates in Xinjiang since 2017," when China began a campaign to control birth rates in the region.

Xinjiang's birth rate dropped by nearly half from 2017 to 2019, and counties where the population was predominately Uyghur or another minority group saw much sharper declines than other counties, the government-funded institute said in the report.

China maintains that changes in birth rates are linked to improved health and economic policy and it strongly rejects accusations of genocide...