Commercial Surrogacy: The CCP's Secret Weapon for Destabilizing America
The commodification of American children is a national security threat.
by Samantha Flom
What do spy balloons, COVID-19, and commercial surrogacy all have in common?
All are tools the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has used to weaken and undermine the United States.
Unlike surveillance aircraft and deadly viruses, however, the CCP's exploitation of the United States' commercial surrogacy industry has largely escaped scrutiny. The silence is dangerous.
Birth tourism, of course, is nothing new. For decades, pregnant foreigners have abused the United States' overly generous recognition of birthright citizenship to secure U.S. citizenship for their children and a potential pathway to legal residency for themselves. Thankfully, the Supreme Court will soon reevaluate that hazardous policy.
Yet over the past year, concerning stories have emerged highlighting how commercial surrogacy creates a similar, dangerous loophole—one that even the narrowest interpretation of the 14th Amendment wouldn't close.
Consider Chinese billionaire Xu Bo. The videogame executive's company claims he has fathered more than 100 children via U.S.-based surrogates, according to the Wall Street Journal. Aside from the obvious question of how well those children can possibly fare with just one shared father, this information raises another pressing concern: For what purpose did Xu purchase those children?
The desire to be a parent is normal, understandable, and even commendable—but it doesn't take 100 babies to satisfy that wish.
The Journal reports that Xu's avowed goals are to raise dozens of U.S.-born boys to one day take over his company. But why must they be American?
Wherever they are raised, Xu's children will always enjoy the benefits of U.S. citizenship—not only because they were born here, but also because of their parentage, if their surrogate mothers were also U.S. citizens. What happens when they decide to test out those benefits—potentially at the CCP's insistence?
Xu isn't the only member of China's elite seeking out American surrogates, either. Wang Huiwu, a business executive in the education sector, fathered 10 girls via U.S. surrogates, according to the Journal.
Meanwhile, a disturbing case in California is still making waves after authorities last July discovered an apparent surrogacy scam run by an immigrant couple from China. Police investigating potential child abuse found that the unmarried Arcadia couple, Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang, had 21 children in their care, mostly obtained through surrogacy.
Police say video evidence shows the children were routinely abused. It remains unclear what the couple intended to do with the kids, though a federal investigation is reportedly underway.
The CCP has been linked to surrogacy scams in other countries. A recent New York Times report detailed one such operation that lured dozens of Thai women to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi to entrap them in a human egg trafficking scheme. These desperate and destitute women, initially told they would be surrogates, were instead forced to sell their eggs to pay back their "debts" to their Chinese bosses and earn their freedom. They were never told who the buyers were.
China, for its part, has banned surrogacy in all its forms. The CCP, it would seem, realizes that the security threat of such arrangements and scams works both ways. Yet unlike China and many European nations, the United States does not regulate surrogacy—commercial or otherwise—at the federal level.
What are we waiting for?
A bill Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) introduced in November would at least partially address some of the problems with commercial surrogacy. The Stopping Adversarial Foreign Exploitation of Kids in Domestic Surrogacy (SAFE KIDS) Act would void and render unenforceable surrogacy contracts between U.S.-based surrogates and prospective parents hailing from the adversarial nations of China, North Korea, Russia, or Iran.
Scott deserves praise for his efforts, though more is needed to address the remaining risks of commercial surrogacy. To start, his bill would not prevent malign actors in other countries from seeking out and hiring American surrogates. The industry would also remain largely unregulated, requiring no background checks, references, or vetting process of any kind to ensure these children aren't going to child predators or traffickers and that their birth mothers aren't being exploited.
Such major concerns deserve more than minimal scrutiny. Commercial surrogacy, even when well-intentioned, is still effectively child trafficking—a fact recognized by most of our fellow Western nations.
On this, we must align with them. For the good of our nation and people, we must ban commercial surrogacy.
Samantha Flom is a Senior Investigative Researcher for Restoration News covering life issues and the transgender agenda. A graduate of Syracuse University, her work has been published by the Epoch Times, the American Spectator, RealClearPolitics, and other national news outlets.
