Over the past decade, an increasing number of affluent Chinese individuals — some of them billionaires — have turned to American surrogacy arrangements to build families of unprecedented size, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has reported.
In extreme cases, these efforts have gone beyond personal parenthood and into ambitions that may aid in establishing an entire dynasty
Family court officials meant to formalise parenthood and reviewing surrogacy petitions noticed something unusual Los Angeles courtroom in 2023: the same intended parent appearing repeatedly across multiple filings.
Further checks revealed that the individual, a wealthy Chinese businessman, was linked not to one or two births but to a rapidly expanding number of unborn and already-born children — each conceived through a different surrogate in the United States.
That case, now reported by WSJ, offered a rare glimpse into a largely opaque and loosely regulated global fertility marketplace.
How a courtroom intervention exposed a hidden pattern
The confidential hearing took place before Los Angeles County family court US Judge Amy Pellman in the summer of 2023.
According to people present, the intended parent was Xu Bo, a videogame executive based in China. Xu did not appear in person and instead joined the proceedings remotely, communicating through an interpreter.
Court records and additional inquiries showed that Xu was seeking parental rights for at least four unborn children. At the same time, officials determined that he had already fathered, or was in the process of fathering, at least eight more children through American surrogates.
During the hearing, Xu reportedly told the judge that his long-term goal was to have around 20 children born in the US, primarily boys, whom he believed would one day assume leadership of his business operations.
Several of these children, people familiar with the matter told WSJ, were being cared for by nannies in Irvine, California, while awaiting documentation to travel to China. Xu acknowledged that he had not met them, explaining that work obligations had kept him occupied.
Pellman, according to those who attended the hearing, expressed alarm. Surrogacy, she indicated, was intended to help individuals form families — not to facilitate what appeared to be industrial-scale reproduction.
In a decision that experts say is highly unusual, Pellman denied Xu’s petition for parentage. The ruling left the children caught in legal uncertainty, despite the fact that the surrogacy arrangements themselves had followed standard procedural steps.
Xu is known to maintain a high profile online while remaining almost entirely absent from public view. He has not been photographed publicly for nearly a decade and rarely grants interviews.
A representative of his company, Duoyi Network, on an email response, stated, “The boss does not accept interview requests from anyone for any purpose,” and added that “much of what you described is untrue.”
How China’s elites are building ‘mega-families’
Xu Bo’s case is not an isolated one.
Within China’s elite circles, a growing number of individuals are using overseas surrogacy to pursue family sizes that would be impossible — both legally and logistically — within China.
Xu has publicly embraced this identity. He refers to himself as “China’s first father,” and his company has claimed on social media that he has more than 100 children born through surrogacy in the United States.
He is also widely known in China as a vocal critic of feminism.
Other wealthy Chinese figures have pursued similarly controversial paths. Wang Huiwu, president and CEO of Sichuan-based XJ International Holdings, is said by people close to his education company to have fathered 10 girls via US surrogacy arrangements.
Wang reportedly recruited egg donors from diverse professional backgrounds, including fashion models, a finance PhD holder and a musician. The cost of each egg donation was said to range between $6,000 and $7,500.
Those close to Wang said he preferred daughters and hoped they would eventually marry influential global figures. Screenshots purportedly showing messages from someone claiming to share a nanny with Wang circulated widely on Chinese social media in 2021, triggering intense public backlash.
Domestic media outlets criticised Wang, arguing that commercial surrogacy exploits women and undermines public morality.
Around the same time, shares in his company dropped sharply. XJ International Holdings, which previously dismissed the allegations as unfounded rumours, did not respond to subsequent requests for comment.
How this highlights a sophisticated international fertility industry
The ability of wealthy Chinese clients to commission large numbers of children abroad has been enabled by a highly developed transnational fertility industry.
In the US, particularly in states such as California, surrogacy laws permit international intended parents to work with American surrogate carriers. Court proceedings related to surrogacy are typically confidential, often leaving little public trace even on court dockets.
This lack of transparency has allowed some clients to work simultaneously with multiple agencies, law firms and clinics without detection.
Industry professionals say oversight is so limited that it is often impossible to determine whether a single intended parent is commissioning multiple pregnancies across different jurisdictions.
Speaking to WSJ, California-based surrogacy agency owner Joy Millan described being approached by a single father in China seeking four surrogates. She agreed to help him connect with one carrier, only to later learn that he had engaged other agencies at the same time.
Surrogacy agencies typically earn between $40,000 and $50,000 per arrangement, excluding payments made directly to the surrogate. Additional costs — covering IVF procedures, legal services, insurance, childcare and logistics — can push the total cost per child to nearly $200,000.
In some cases, Chinese parents have managed the entire process remotely.
Experts say it has become possible for intended parents to send genetic material abroad, oversee pregnancies via intermediaries and arrange for newborns to be collected from hospitals and placed with caregivers, all without entering the US themselves.
How China’s erstwhile one-child policy pushed this
For many years, overseas surrogacy offered a workaround for China’s strict population controls.
Before the one-child policy was abolished in 2015, children born abroad as US citizens fell outside China’s domestic penalty system. Nathan Zhang, founder and CEO of IVF USA, said his earlier clients were largely parents attempting to bypass those restrictions.
Over time, however, the motivations have shifted. According to Zhang, a new class of ultra-wealthy clients has emerged — individuals seeking not just larger families but vast lineages.
“Elon Musk is becoming a role model now,” Zhang told WSJ, explaining that some clients now want dozens or even hundreds of children in pursuit of what he described as an “unstoppable family dynasty.”
Zhang recalled one prospective client in the education sector who wanted more than 200 children at once through surrogacy. “I asked him directly, ‘How do you plan to raise all these children?’ He was speechless,” Zhang said.
Zhang ultimately declined to work with him.
Other professionals echoed similar experiences. One California agency owner said he had helped fulfil a request for 100 children over several years, spread across multiple agencies.
A Los Angeles surrogacy attorney said he had assisted a Chinese billionaire in having 20 children through surrogacy in recent years.
Amanda Troxler, a Los Angeles-based surrogacy lawyer, said her firm once consulted with a Chinese parent seeking eight to 10 surrogacies and asking for a bulk discount. “I was like, ‘No, we’re not Costco,’” Troxler told WSJ.
She declined the client, citing her firm’s policy against undertaking more than two surrogacies for a single parent at one time.
How China has reacted to overseas surrogacy
While Chinese authorities often tolerate overseas surrogacy in practice, high-profile cases have repeatedly triggered domestic outrage.
In 2019, actress Zheng Shuang and her then-boyfriend Zhang Heng hired two US surrogates. Their relationship deteriorated before the births, leading to a custody dispute in Colorado.
Court documents revealed that Zheng had second thoughts about the pregnancies and allegedly considered asking a surrogate to terminate one pregnancy, though the fetus was already too far along.
Zhang ultimately travelled to the US to attend the births in Colorado and Nevada and remained there to care for the children.
After Zhang disclosed the situation on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, the Communist Party’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission issued a statement condemning the practice.
“For Chinese citizens to exploit legal loopholes and flee to the United States simply because surrogacy is prohibited in China is by no means abiding by the law,” the statement said.
The fallout was severe. Zheng was dropped by fashion brands, and both she and Zhang were investigated for tax evasion. She was later ordered to pay a fine of nearly $46 million, while Zhang was fined $5 million.
Zhang eventually received sole parenting responsibility for the children and later co-founded a California-based surrogacy agency catering to Chinese clients.
Surrogacy has also surfaced in elite political scandals. In 2023, the disappearance of Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang followed an internal Communist Party investigation into an alleged affair with prominent journalist Fu Xiaotian.
Fu gave birth to a child via US surrogacy in late 2022. Although the government never confirmed the child’s paternity, the episode prompted internal scrutiny over whether senior officials had used overseas surrogacy arrangements.
Both
Qin and Fu vanished from public view after the scandal broke.
Despite the growing scale of overseas surrogacy, Chinese authorities have not imposed a formal ban on citizens seeking such arrangements abroad. However, criticism has become more explicit in recent years.
Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said in a statement that Chinese health authorities believe surrogacy can result in “serious family and social ethical crisis.”
How US birth citizenship is also being misused
Children born on US soil automatically acquire American citizenship under the 14th Amendment, a constitutional provision that has long been politically contentious.
In 2020, the US State Department tightened visa rules aimed at curbing birth tourism, particularly for women suspected of travelling to the US solely to give birth.
In January, US President Donald Trump issued an executive order denying citizenship to children born in the US unless at least one parent is a citizen or permanent legal resident. The order is currently under review by the Supreme Court.
It remains unclear whether such restrictions would apply to cases involving American surrogate carriers.
Last month, US Senator Rick Scott of Florida introduced a bill seeking to ban US surrogacy services for people from certain countries, including China.
He cited an ongoing federal human trafficking investigation involving a Chinese-American couple in Los Angeles who reportedly have more than two dozen children, nearly all born through surrogacy within a four-year period.
Federal authorities are examining the issue more broadly. Surrogates who have worked with Chinese parents said they were interviewed by investigators from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, though the purpose of the inquiries has not been disclosed.
What international surrogacy numbers tell us
Academic research highlights how dramatically international surrogacy has expanded. Researchers at Emory University found that the number of US surrogacy cycles involving international parents quadrupled between 2014 and 2019.
During that period, IVF clinics initiated 3,240 cycles for surrogate carriers working with foreign parents, accounting for nearly 40 per cent of the US total. Among international clients between 2014 and 2020, 41 per cent were from China.
Although the pandemic temporarily slowed cross-border arrangements due to travel restrictions, industry professionals say demand has rebounded sharply.
With inputs from agencies
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