Backlash to Chinese actress Zheng Shuang’s surrogacy scandal: ‘definitely not innocent’, authorities say, while brands distance themselves

Chinese authorities and several brands linked to Zheng including Prada have reacted to accusations she abandoned her two children born to US-based surrogates

Other organisations and celebrities that had previous associations with surrogacy, including movie star Xu Jinglei, have also come under intense public scrutiny

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Published: 5:45pm, 20 Jan 2021Updated: 5:45pm, 20 Jan 2021

The backlash continues full throttle.

Two days after popular Chinese actress Zheng Shuang was accused by her former partner, producer Zhang Heng, of abandoning their two children born to US-based surrogate mothers, Chinese authorities and a host of commercial brands linked to Zheng have reacted to the controversy.

Zheng’s surrogacy used a legal loophole and was “definitely not innocent”, the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China said on Wednesday.

“Surrogacy is banned in China as it uses women’s uteruses as a tool and sells life as a commercial product,” the commission’s post on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like service, said. “As a Chinese citizen, the act of travelling to the US on a legal loophole is not abiding the law.”

Zheng in an advert for Prada. Photo: Prada

China’s state broadcaster CCTV also commented on Weibo that “surrogacy is banned in China because it overlooks life”, before going on to call the practice “trampling the bottom line [of human morality]”.