Judge Slams Mass Surrogacy Scheme

Pregnant woman holding belly during medical visit — Photo: fizkes / Shutterstock

A California surrogate learned only from a television news report that the man paying for her pregnancy was a reclusive Chinese billionaire already linked to more than a hundred children born through American surrogates.

Story Snapshot

A Los Angeles family court found Xu Bo was seeking parental rights to four unborn children while at least eight more were already being carried by surrogates.
Xu Bo reportedly told a judge by video from China he wanted about 20 U.S.-born children, mostly boys, to one day run his business.
His company, Duoyi Network, says he has “a little over 100” children total but only 12 were born through U.S. surrogacy.
A judge denied his parentage request, an unusual check on a largely unregulated American surrogacy industry.

What The Court Records Actually Show

Reporting from The Wall Street Journal says a California family court uncovered that Xu Bo was pursuing parental rights for at least four unborn children. Further digging showed he had already fathered, or was in the process of fathering, at least eight more through surrogates. Judge Amy Pellman denied his parentage request, a rare rebuke inside an industry that mostly runs on private contracts and little government oversight.

The Atlantic’s account adds detail, describing children from Xu’s arrangements being raised by nannies in a cluster of houses in Irvine, California. That detail matters because it turns an abstract legal dispute into a picture of real infants and toddlers living far from their biological father, cared for by hired staff while he directs a gaming company from across the Pacific.

Xu Bo’s Own Words To The Judge

Newsmax reported that Xu appeared by video link from China through an interpreter and told the court he hoped to have roughly 20 U.S.-born children, mostly boys, to eventually take over his business. That statement is his own, made under oath in a courtroom, not a leak or a rumor. It is the single most direct piece of evidence in this entire story, and it deserves to carry more weight than any headline count.

Firstpost reported that Xu calls himself “China’s first father” and that his company has publicly claimed on social media he has more than 100 children born through American surrogacy. Whatever the exact number turns out to be, a man building a private workforce of children through paid surrogates and interpreters in a foreign court is not an ordinary custody case.

The Company Pushes Back On The Numbers

Duoyi Network, Xu’s gaming company, disputed the Journal’s reporting directly. The company said Xu has over 100 children total, but only 12 were born through surrogacy in the United States, and accused the newspaper of distorting his statement. Newsweek reported the same company pushback, quoting Duoyi’s claim that the paper “intentionally misrepresented the facts and disseminated false information”.

The Times later quoted Xu giving a similar figure, saying his overall count was 100 children, with only 12 conceived through American surrogacy. That is a real contradiction worth weighing. It does not erase the court’s own findings about four unborn children and eight more in progress, but it does mean the eye-catching “300 children” figure tied to an ex-partner’s allegation remains unproven and separate from what the court itself documented.

Why This Case Exposes A Bigger Legal Gap

China bans domestic commercial surrogacy, which is why wealthy Chinese nationals travel to loosely regulated American states to build large families through paid carriers. Surrogacy law in the United States varies wildly by state, and family courts were never built to referee international parentage disputes involving dozens of children and offshore fathers. This case is not an isolated oddity. It is a preview of a legal gap conservatives have long warned about: birthright citizenship rules and thin surrogacy oversight can be stretched by wealthy foreigners in ways ordinary American families never could.

A California surrogate carrying a stranger’s child deserves to know exactly who that stranger is before she signs anything. Judge Pellman’s denial of parentage sends a clear signal that American courts will not simply rubber-stamp mass surrogacy arrangements built around one man’s private ambitions, no matter how much money backs the operation.