Intra-Asian infrastructures of Chinese birth tourism

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the development of the Chinese birth tourism industry and its intra-Asian operations. It discusses Chinese birth tourism away from the United States. The chapter focuses on existing regional linkages, such as long-standing but small-scale informal birth tourism from Taiwan and a brief surge of Chinese birth tourism to Hong Kong in the 2000s, that buttress China–United States birth tourism networks. It also focuses on birth tourism agencies' operations in China and Taiwan. The chapter examines the emerging literature by providing empirics on Chinese birth tourism agencies' operations and, to a lesser extent, prospective birth tourists' experiences at these agencies. The chapter focuses on intra-Asian infrastructures of contemporary Chinese birth tourism industry, describing separately for birth agencies in China and Taiwan their modes of recruitment, clientele demographics and scales of operations. It demonstrates, contemporary ethnic Chinese birth tourism to the United States is overwhelmingly commercialised and draws its clientele from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.