A Surrogacy Silk Road: Chinese Parents Head West for Babies

On the popular Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, an account called “Georgia Notes” (@格鲁吉亚小纸条) offers tips and advice to Chinese nationals planning a trip to the Republic of Georgia. In one post, it warns “ordinary tourists traveling back to China” that their five-hour-long return flight from Tbilisi to Ürümchi, in Xinjiang, is likely to be crowded with crying newborn babies. An unpleasant surprise, assures the author of the post, who counted 20 infants aboard his own flight: “I felt something was wrong from the moment I checked in. A group of middle-aged men were checking in with newborn babies.”

Georgia has become an increasingly popular destination for Chinese visitors. The number of visits nearly tripled between 2023 and 2024, with more than 88,500 visits last year. Yet leisure tourism does not account for the infant-filled flights back to China. Rather, it seems more likely the tiny passengers were the reason many Chinese visitors had traveled to Georgia in the first place. The international surrogacy market has boomed in the region, where it...