The revelation last month that a Chinese couple were the proud parents of two sets of triplets and one set of twins launched a round of soul-searching about how the super-rich circumvent the one-child policy. It is a tangled case involving a wealthy couple, two surrogate mothers, a gaggle of nannies and, to top it off, a team of government bureaucrats scrambling to figure out how they all came together…

The babies have stirred up fiery emotions on Chinese Twitter-like microblogs and Internet forums. “In this society, if you have money, you can have miracles!” one sardonic university student wrote on his Sina Weibo microblog. “Having children is now a luxurious game for the rich,” wrote a user in Guangzhou, the southern city where the family lives…

An anchorwoman on China Central Television said the intersection of abundant wealth and abundant children has had a discomforting effect on Chinese society.

“Where does this discomfort come from? It comes from unfairness,” she said. “Why? Because the vast majority of us strictly abide by the one-child policy. One family, one household, one child.”