Chinese moms-to-be are sneaking for 2

hong kong -- Liu Jinling felt like a criminal when she crossed the border from mainland China into Hong Kong.

She tried to hide the bulge in her belly by wearing a loose-fitting blouse. She carried a big purse close to her body.

The Hong Kong immigration official stared at her for a long time, considered her tourist visa, and asked whom she was coming to see. Her heart raced when he stamped her documents and finally handed them back.

“I knew he was suspicious,” Liu said. “When I walked away he turned to look at me again. I was so scared. I thought he must have regretted letting me pass and was going to drag me back.”

Liu had good reason to fear. She was carrying contraband -- a seven-month fetus.

Under rules imposed in February, pregnant mainlanders entering the territory who appear to be in their third trimester are charged $5,000 to guarantee a spot in a Hong Kong maternity ward. Otherwise, they’re not allowed to cross the border.

Liu didn’t have the money.

Her predicament tells much about the relationship between Hong Kong and mainland China a decade after Britain returned the territory to Chinese rule. On the surface, the merger is a success. Despite the fears of many of its people, Hong Kong has not been overrun by poor mainlanders. The mainland is transforming itself into a global economic power, and its free-spending tourists are a welcome boost to the Hong Kong economy.

Still, the integration is far from seamless. Hong Kong fears that poor mainlanders will abuse its advanced social welfare system and inundate its hospitals, which charge local mothers next to nothing. Mainlanders consider the Hong Kong passport, to which those born here are entitled, a priceless gift to their children.

“Every parent wants their children to be born and raised in the best environment possible,” Liu said. “Hong Kong is superior in so many ways.”

The new restrictions apply to Liu even though her husband, a taxi driver, is a Hong Kong resident. The rules would not apply if Liu was from Hong Kong and her husband was a mainlander.

“They raised the fees after I got pregnant,” Liu said. “I am 37. If I don’t have this baby now, I may not have another chance.”

Although the steep financial hurdle did stop some mainland mothers-to-be, it has pushed others to take even greater risks.

When her time comes, Liu won’t be able to show proof of payment. She will do what other women say they did: wait for her water to break and make a mad dash to the emergency room.

“I hope they take me in on humanitarian grounds,” Liu said.

Until reunification in 1997, Hong Kong was basically off limits to most Chinese on the mainland. But in the early decades after the communists took over China in 1949, hundreds of thousands of illegal Chinese immigrants fled here to escape poverty and political turmoil.

Even after reunification, children born in Hong Kong to mainlanders did not automatically qualify for permanent residence. That began to change after a 2001 court case in which a Chinese boy born in Hong Kong was given the right of abode even though neither of his parents were residents.

The turning point came in 2003, when the SARS epidemic dealt a devastating blow to the territory’s tourism industry. Beijing came to Hong Kong’s aid by easing restrictions on travel, making it easier for mainland tourists to help boost the territory’s economy.

Authorities, however, were unprepared for the legions of pregnant women who poured across the border along with the shoppers who sought to pick up Gucci bags and Rolex watches.

Mainland women came not just to take advantage of a superior public health system but also to enjoy the simple right of reproductive freedom.

On the mainland, efforts to curb the birthrate have led to many stories of late-term abortions and forced sterilization. Women on the mainland who are married to Hong Kong men are subject to the same family planning rules.

Benny Mak, a Hong Kong real estate broker who is married to a mainlander, said that when his wife got pregnant with their second child, the doctor recommended an abortion.

“If we stay in China, they could arrest my wife while she is still pregnant, make her get an abortion and pay a big fine. It would all be legal.”

But China’s one-child policy does not apply here. In fact, the Chinese territory has one of the world’s lowest birthrates, and its leaders encourage residents to have three children per family.

The number of mainland babies born in Hong Kong each year shot up from a few hundred in the 1990s to more than 20,000 in the first 10 months of last year, about one-third of births in this territory of 6.9 million.

As well-to-do mainlanders and even poorer families sought to have more children, in hope of having a boy in a society that traditionally favors male offspring, an entire industry grew to meet their needs. Tourist companies now offer birth packages that cover everything from transportation to hospital stays to paperwork. Some even cater to pregnant women who can’t afford to pay the new fees by helping them slip past the border guards without getting off the bus.

Although some private hospitals have benefited from the influx of rich mainlanders, public birthing facilities say they have been hit by freeloaders. Local mothers took to the streets last year to protest overcrowding at birthing centers and difficulty getting appointments. Some waiting rooms for women seeking prenatal checkups feel like supermarket checkouts.

“There were not enough beds to go around: Some new mothers had to sleep on cots in the hallway and breast-feed in public -- it’s very inconvenient,” said Ella Lau, a Hong Kong woman who gave birth in February.

The local government responded by imposing the new fees and stepping up vigilance at the border. Doctors and nurses measure how far along a pregnancy is, sometimes just by sight; women who can’t afford the fees are turned back.

Even those able to pay the much higher private hospital fees say the scrutiny is an intrusion unbecoming of such a cosmopolitan city.

“They took me into a special room with suspected drug dealers and prostitutes -- it made me very uncomfortable,” said Yi Lanna, a mainlander who was eight months pregnant with her second child when she entered Hong Kong. “I am willing to pay more because I am not from Hong Kong, but they should treat us with more dignity.”

Yi, who gave birth to a boy in Hong Kong in early July, said she had paid more than $6,000 to reserve a room to be shared with three other women.

When she had her first child in Hong Kong three years ago, she had a room to herself. This time, it was much more crowded. She even had to push up her child’s date of birth because doctors were all booked.

Horbo Chu, a midwife at United Christian Hospital, said the mainlanders’ efforts to get around the system cause many problems.

“Some end up giving birth in the hospital lobby or on the street in front of the hospital,” she said. “Some already gave birth at home or on the way here and only make it to the hospital to cut the umbilical cords.”

Many of these women have no medical records and have not had prenatal checkups, which are free for Hong Kong residents but cost $100 for mainlanders. That often leaves nurses ill prepared for special cases, such as patients who turn out to be HIV-positive or had no idea they were having twins.

The new policy is especially hard on the growing number of Hong Kong men married to mainlanders.

“It’s totally unfair,” said Mak, the real estate broker. “I am a Hong Kong resident, I pay my taxes just like everybody else here. Why should I pay more?”

When he tried to bring his wife and 2-year-old daughter into Hong Kong for a visit in May, they were detained and questioned for an hour. To determine whether their marriage was real, officials kept them apart and asked his wife personal questions, such as whether they rent or own their home and how much money he had in his wallet.

Despite all the medical records the couple provided, the border patrol insisted that his wife was more than 5 1/2 months pregnant. Instead of a three-month visa, she was given a stamp for a 14-day visit, so she had to return to the mainland before it expired.

Mak said his wife was also listed as a potential violator, so if they try to cross the border again, she won’t be able to do so without even closer scrutiny.

Now they are in a bind.

Their second baby, if born on the mainland, would be an outlaw by birth. Without a legal identity, the child would not be able to get a passport. The family would never be able to reunite in Hong Kong, where Mak lives.

“We thought about giving up the baby,” Mak said. “But we didn’t have the heart to do it just because we can’t come up with $5,000.”

Their plan now is to run for the border when the contractions begin and beg the Hong Kong border guards for mercy.

“I will have to bargain hard with the guards,” Mak said. “But no matter what, I will make sure my baby is born in Hong Kong.”

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chingching.ni@latimes.com