Thai immigration officials recently revealed that some Chinese males illegally obtain residency in Thailand by finding a local Thai woman to be a surrogate, then entering the country to raise the child and bypass local restrictions on foreign asset ownership. These activities have raised concerns among the Thai public.
On April 4, a commercial surrogacy crime syndicate was exposed during a police raid in a kidnapping case in Silom, Bangkok. Three Burmese and four Chinese nationals were arrested, and two kidnapped Chinese men were rescued. The two kidnapped were abducted in Chonburi on March 20 and extorted for 5 million baht (about $150,000), according to an April 6 report in Thai media, The Nation.
Police found that the kidnapped Chinese men ran an illegal surrogacy business in the building, and the kidnapping mob was their business partner. They provided Thai women to act as surrogate mothers, along with fake IDs and passports.
Local Thais are also involved in the illegal surrogacy business. On April 4, a Thai suspect was charged with illegally allowing foreigners to stay in Thailand; on the same day, four suspects surrendered to police, including a well-known Thai doctor rumored to have ties to a former provincial chief executive.
Thai TV channel PPTV released a video on Facebook on April 5, revealing more details about Chinese nationals seeking surrogacy from Thai women. A Chanthaburi immigration official said in the video that some Chinese parents want to have a child born to a Thai mother or a child born in Thailand. Thus, the child has Thai nationality, and the “father” has the status of the father of a Thai child. This way, the Chinese “father” will have the right to stay in Thailand to support the child.
Thai law stipulates that when the child reaches the age of 20, the foreign father can apply to remain in Thailand on a retirement visa if aged 50 or above, and since the child is a Thai national, they can pursue any occupation they want. There is no restriction on owning real estate.
As of April 11, the video has triggered nearly 3,500 comments. One of the comments, which has received thousands of likes, suggested “not to immediately provide Thai nationality to children of [a] Chinese father” before they “first take a DNA test so that it can trace when their Chinese fathers entered Thailand and their visas, and what business they had in Thailand.” Otherwise, “In the long run, Chinese fathers can buy Thai land through their children with Thai nationality. This plan could even lead to the end of Thailand. We can see examples of this in our neighboring countries.”
Wave of Chinese Flee China
Family members of passengers on board a capsized tourist boat wait at Phuket Airport, Thailand, upon their arrival on July 7, 2018. Ore Huiying/Getty Images
Commercial surrogacy is illegal in Thailand, but that hasn’t stopped some Chinese from taking the risk of leaving China and immigrating there. This relates to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) dictatorship of Chinese people and “a massive number of people, of all moral levels, desiring to flee China,” Japanese current affairs commentator Li Yiming told The Epoch Times on April 9.
According to Li, about 95 percent of the Chinese people have experienced persecution by the CCP, regardless of social class or wealth, either directly or indirectly.
“Those who have no money may be smuggling themselves out of China,” said Li, citing the thousands of people smuggled into the United States through Mexico in a month.
Wealthy Chinese invest in Canada, Australia, and other countries to become immigrant residents.
While among those not wealthy enough to immigrate legally, some may choose to leave China using illegal surrogacy, Li said.
In the past three years, the CCP’s draconian zero-COVID policy and prolonged city lockdowns have disappointed Chinese citizens and prompted them to leave China.
Chinese internet portal Tencent reported on April 18, 2022, that the number of searches for “immigration” on platforms such as WeChat, a Twitter-like social media, and Baidu, China’s biggest search engine, increased dramatically in the last week of March 28-April 3, with a 2,846 percent increase in searches for the keyword “conditions for immigrating to Canada.” The second highest YoY increase was for “where to go abroad” (2,455 percent increase), and the third was for “how to immigrate to Malaysia” (2,431 percent increase). Some of the questions with hundreds of growth rates were “Can I buy a house in the UK” (476 percent growth rate) and “Conditions for investment immigration to Singapore” (378 percent growth rate).
Southeast Asia has been among the hot spots for Chinese investment since the end of 2022, when the Chinese policymakers ceased the zero-COVID measures, with Thailand being the most favored.
Chinese middle-income and above try to diversify their risk by buying property in places like Thailand and Indonesia for those territories’ lower risk of geopolitics. According to a South China Morning Post report in February, some intend to reside there.
Illegal Immigration
In addition to legal immigration channels, illicit retention of Chinese in Thailand is also a common problem.
Thai Deputy National Police Chief General Surachet Hakparn (C) speaks to journalists outside the Saudi embassy after a meeting with Saudi officials in Bangkok on Jan. 8, 2019. Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP via Getty Images
Deputy National Police Chief General Surachet Hakparn said at a Feb.13 press briefing that 110 immigration officials, including three generals, allegedly conspired with Chinese in Thailand to issue visas to thousands of Chinese citizens between 2020 and 2021, “allowing them to stay in Thailand and engage in illegal operations.”
The massive investigation came after a drug seizure by Thai police at a nightclub in Sathorn in October 2022. The owner of the lounge, a Chinese national, owned many assets in Thailand, including a private jet, according to a Jan.14 report by The Nation.
The United States also reported a surge in illegal border crossings of people from China.
A March 24 press release from the Texas governor’s office regarding illegal immigration mentioned the surge of illegal immigrants from China, saying that in the past five months (from last October to this February), U.S. Customs and Border Protection counted 4,300 illegal border crossers from China, including 1,300 in February of this year, a 900 percent surge compared to the previous fiscal year. To access the United States, Chinese emigrants pay criminal gangs between $35,000 and $50,000.
Kathleen Li has contributed to The Epoch Times since 2009 and focuses on China-related topics. She is an engineer, chartered in civil and structural engineering in Australia.
