Reproductive uncertainty: Understanding the regulations on assisted reproductive technologies in China by Tiantian Chen

In recent years, concerns and anxieties about the future of reproductive rights have intensified globally. In this context, Tiantian Chen’s new book, “Reproductive Uncertainty”, makes an important and timely contribution to this discussion by offering a critical examination of the regulatory landscape surrounding Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) in contemporary China. […]

The book accomplishes its central aim: providing readers with a sociological examination of reproductive uncertainty in contemporary China and exploring how those uncertainties are linked not just to policy frameworks regulating ART practices but also to prevailing social norms. Chen’s conception of ‘spiral modernisation’, an alternative to dominant linear conceptions of modernity, and one that is particularly relevant to China, is a significant theoretical contribution to existing scholarship on modernisation. [...]

[Extract from book review on the journal ¡Europe-Asia Studies', 77:4, pp. 673-674, Reviewer: Kanav Narayan Sahgal. (Published online: 29 May 2025.) DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2025.2489320]