Recently, the Qingdao surrogacy laboratory was exposed by the media, sparking strong public attention. However, the Chinese authorities have been trying to delete posts and control comments, dampening online discussions, further raising doubts about the official stance and concerns about organ trafficking and the sale of human beings.
Henan TV reported on August 26th that a nearly abandoned auto trade city in Qingdao was hiding a surrogacy laboratory. It operated under the guise of consulting services for test-tube babies but was actually involved in an illegal surrogacy industry chain, including illegal egg retrieval, fertilization, and embryo implantation. Doctors from top-tier hospitals were colluding with surrogacy agencies. Young girls were selling their eggs multiple times, undergoing surgery without proper anesthesia, and the entire hallway echoed with the cries of girls in pain.
The girls were categorized based on their appearance and health status into high-end and low-end products, given codes instead of names, and each egg was priced openly. Surrogacy for one child costs 750,000 RMB, plus an additional 200,000 RMB for selecting the gender, and 50,000 RMB for a birth certificate.
On August 26th, the Qingdao Health Commission reported that a joint investigation team had been formed regarding the alleged surrogacy activities of a biotechnology company in the city as circulated online. Subsequently, posts related to the incident were deleted on Weibo, and there have been no further developments to date.
Netizens expressed that “the heat around the Qingdao surrogacy laboratory should not fade away,” and “underground surrogacy involves egg retrieval, anesthesia, controlled anesthetics, surgeries, prenatal check-ups, miscarriages, and even newborns’ birth certificates and household registrations, involving healthcare and public security systems.” They noted that the largest surrogacy agencies in the north and the mature supply chain indicated deep involvement of local government officials. Following the incident, local authorities have been controlling online discussions and dampening the heat, suggesting that the issue might be more significant than initially thought.
Surrogacy is generally when customers provide healthy sperm, and surrogacy companies provide egg sources to cultivate embryos that are implanted into surrogate mothers’ bodies for childbirth. However, there are cases where the demand side provides sperm and eggs, undergoes in vitro fertilization, and then implants embryos into surrogate mothers’ wombs for childbirth.
Surrogacy is illegal in China. In February 2001, the Chinese Ministry of Health issued the “Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Management Measures,” prohibiting the sale of gametes, zygotes, and embryos in any form. Medical institutions and medical staff are not allowed to carry out any form of surrogacy technology. In June 2003, revisions were made to the “Human Assisted Reproduction Technology Standards,” emphasizing the prevention of the abuse of human assisted reproductive technology for mere economic gain.
A journalist’s investigation revealed that crackdowns on illegal surrogacy in mainland China primarily occurred around 2015. For instance, in March 2013, Hong Kong’s Fortunet Group, which had been operating illegal surrogacy for six years, was investigated. In 2015, the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China led special operations against surrogacy, urging investigations into medical institutions, medical personnel, and social intermediaries involved in surrogacy practices.
In the same period, a surrogacy village in Haokou Town, Jianli County, Hubei Province, was exposed. According to a report by Shandong TV, women from the village traveled to the city to engage in surrogacy for substantial commissions, even risking pregnancies for older women in their forties and fifties. Some women underwent multiple miscarriages and hysterectomies, suffering severe traumas; others had multiple cesarean sections with complications, leading to the loss of both mother and child.
With rural farming yielding little income, surrogacy became a lucrative and quick money-making option. New neatly built houses across the village were funded with money earned from women engaging in surrogacy. As surrogacy was done through in vitro methods, the men in the families did not seem to mind.
Reports also exposed hidden surrogacy chains in Hubei, Guangdong, Shanghai, and other areas.
Over the past decade, various surrogacy facilities have mushroomed across mainland China, with surrogacy advertisements flooding the market. For example, in the September 2024 issue of Xiamen Airlines magazine, there was an advertisement by “Thai Eastern International,” offering full-service delivery plans, claiming to bypass the arduous nine-month process and only enjoy the beautiful results.
Surrogacy agency “Excellent Pregnancy”
states that they have done over two hundred cases of surrogacy domestically in a year.
Illegal surrogacy agencies buy and sell women’s eggs, extending their illicit hands to female college students, with education and appearance becoming selling points. However, it was also revealed that the education and background provided by intermediaries for surrogate mothers were likely false.
Zhang Jing, the founder of Chinese Women’s Rights, indicated during an Epoch Times interview that surrogacy involves legal, ethical, and moral considerations, but in reality, the authorities have not implemented strict surveillance measures. After the Qingdao surrogacy incident was exposed, the public wished to learn more details. However, the government fears more public attention, which could escalate the situation further without resolution.
She said, “Due to the contamination of food, water sources, and pharmaceuticals in China, especially since the COVID-19 outbreak, infertility has become a severe issue. People resort to the black market to have children since there is a high demand. In this chaotic stage, surrogacy methods are brutal, and the process is inhumane.”
In June 2023, the Chinese authorities issued a work plan for the “Severe Crackdown on Illegal Application of Human Assisted Reproductive Technology,” aiming to combat illegal activities such as buying and selling sperm, eggs, surrogacy, and counterfeiting and trading medical birth certificates.
“In the name of a ‘severe crackdown,’ it is essentially like a brief gust of wind, just like all other severe crackdowns on public security matters, once it passes, it’s over. Fundamentally, it won’t change the current situation of black market operations and surrogacy villages,” Zhang Jing believed. From a medical procedure standpoint, surrogacy is cheaper and more convenient than in vitro fertilization. Since many rural Chinese women don’t have many job opportunities, surrogacy exploits these women’s bodies and efforts to prioritize earning money.
In September 2020, The Paper conducted an investigation into the underground surrogacy market. Despite genetic screening, surrogacy still poses risks of birthing “unhealthy babies.” A manager from a surrogacy company enumerated the “defective products” among over a hundred children born through surrogacy in the previous year (2019), including “one with a displaced kidney, two with congenital heart diseases, and three premature births.” They even encountered cases where children had imperforate anus, missing kidneys, and other health issues.
Unhealthy babies indicate a “failed transaction.” Customers almost never accept such children, refuse to pay the final installment, and the children are then dealt with by the surrogacy agencies through other arrangements.
Current affairs blogger “Hua Commentary” commented that the surrogacy industry is indeed too dark. The implications of these “other arrangements” are horrifying to consider. Netizens questioned, “Who would be willing to buy a ‘defective’ child with congenital diseases? The fate of these babies is on the brink.” They expressed, “The world has truly gone rotten.”
Jiang Fuzhen, a prominent human rights activist in Qingdao and Secretary-General of the Overseas Committee of the China Democracy Party, stated during an Epoch Times interview that before he left the country, around 2015, he often saw surrogacy advertisements in the streets of Qingdao, signifying a market for surrogacy. The demand could be from wealthy individuals needing surrogacy or unmarried individuals wanting children, indicating various demands. The nature of surrogacy changes drastically when it becomes institutionalized, as it inherently becomes a sinful act.
Regarding the fate of unhealthy babies born through surrogacy, Jiang Fuzhen shuddered at the possibilities, indicating no evidence to confirm. “Either they are buried, or if not buried, they may undergo certain treatments, such as using male infants’ reproductive organs for medicinal purposes. In some secretive establishments, there is ‘baby soup.’ It’s appalling to realize that the organ trafficking issue in Qingdao is so severe; the large-scale purchases of bodies by the Shanxi Auri company, some sourced from the Qingdao University affiliated hospital, is substantial.”
In November 2018, Chinese scientist He Jiankui shocked the world by creating the world’s first gene-edited babies. He recruited eight couples to participate in an experiment, injecting genes related to HIV immunity into fertilized eggs, and then implanting the embryos into the mothers’ wombs. Two volunteers became pregnant, with one giving birth to twin girls named “Lulu” and “Nana.”
People’s Daily at first praised He saying that “China had made a historic breakthrough in utilizing gene-editing technology for disease prevention.” However, on December 30, 2019, He Jiankui was sentenced to three years in prison for practicing medicine illegally and fined three million RMB.
Zhang Jing believed that civilized countries would not engage in creating designer babies, unlike Chinese scholars who flaunted their gene-edited babies for fame. “What has become of them now? They haven’t faced significant consequences. These scientists are driven by fame and profit, using it for personal gain rather than as an academic endeavor, thus losing moral boundaries.”
“The purpose of surrogacy is to make money, hence it has no moral boundaries,” Zhang Jing continued. “Combine the high number of missing youths with the organ failure seen in older elites, who desperately seek organ replacements, it creates a massive industry. These surrogate children are born, but are used for other purposes by surrogacy agencies. What are these purposes? Likely for the redistribution of their organs; it’s genuinely terrifying.”
“This isn’t just an ethical problem; if this chaos persists, society will lose all moral boundaries and degrade into a cannibalistic society. If this anarchy goes on, people might start thinking it’s acceptable to create a person, harvest their organs, treating them as fodder for exploitation. It’s genuinely alarming; society becomes unimaginable.”
Despite the indifference of officials, there’s a high public outcry against surrogacy, with calls for it to be criminalized. Netizens stressed that women are not machines or commodities and showed concerns that surrogacy children could become prey in organ trafficking activities.
“After legalization, human trafficking, the disappearance of young girls, confinement, organ trafficking, and more societal ills will emerge. If the uterus can be traded, then why not all organs? Everyone becomes a commodity priced by the elite; it’s deemed unacceptable,” they argued.
Netizen “Yubu Not Fish” asserted, “Reject surrogacy! While it seems to only involve women, once this door is open, organ trade will expand further! In the future, each one of us in the lower social strata will be labeled and traded by those above; it’s absolutely intolerable!”
Zhang Jing highlighted that illegal surrogacy involves major hospitals and doctors, similar to organ harvesting practices, entangling them with certain departments, officials, and elites within the government. Therefore, the government attempts to suppress and block such news to shield those perpetrators.
“In the absence of legislation and oversight, mainland China has started engaging in surrogacy with significant demand, coupled with a substantial need for organ transplants. Given the numerous unscrupulous doctors and hospitals, all of which are driven by profits, forgetting basic morals, it likely cultivates another form of life for organ harvesting, leaving everyone deeply worried,” Zhang Jing concluded.
In the face of the government’s inaction, Jiang Fuzhen stated, “Over the past decade, Beijing has undergone substantial changes in politics, economics, and culture. We are now in the era of Xi Jinping’s high-pressure rule, where things that should not be overlooked are left unattended. Even with grave offenses, surpassing issues like surrogacy, the practice of organ harvesting seems on its way to normalization, overshadowing the Surrogacy case. Therefore, officials do not consider it a significant problem now, sometimes not even addressing it, neglecting even the most profound disasters.”