Intra-Asian infrastructures of Chinese birth tourism: agencies’ operations in China and Taiwan

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.

Turizmde Güncel Eğilimler: Kavramsal Bir Değerlendirme

“…gibi turist paketlerinin bulunduğu sahil kompleksleri, sağlıklı yaşam otelleri ve kırsal dağ bölgeleridir (Gabor & Oltean, 2019). Doğum turizmi: Doğum turizmi, hamile kadınların doğum yapmak için yurtdışına seyahat ettiği uygulamayı tanımlamaktadır (Wang, 2018). Bu turistlerin asıl amacının ne turizm ne de tıbbi hizmet satın almak olduğu, yeni doğan bebekleri için başka bir ülkenin vatandaşlığını kazanmak olduğuna inanılmaktadır.…”

Reproductive mobilities

“…Within the 'global landscape of cross-border reproductive care' (Inhorn and Patrizio 2012, 158) people travel for fertility treatments (Bergmann 2011;Gürtin and Inhorn 2011;Martin 2009;Whittaker and Speier 2010), abortions (Gilmartin and White 2011), and surrogacy (Deomampo 2016;Lozanski 2015;Twine 2015;Whittaker 2018). In addition to these movements to access medically and technologically assisted reproductive care, women engage with reproduction within and across borders in other ways, including as tourists (Frohlick 2015), birth tourists (Wang 2018), pregnant migrants (Luibhéid 2013;Shandy 2008), and international adoption seekers (Cohen, Speier, and Frohlick 2015). Alongside corporeal movements in response to reproductive desires, there are cross border movements of technologies, bioproducts (Kroløkke 2018), expertise, and finance.…”