The Chinese scientist behind the biggest cloning factory in the world has told AFP that he has technology advanced enough to replicate humans. He said he was just holding off being afraid of the public reaction.

Boyalife Group and its partners are going to build the huge plant in the northern Chinese port of Tianjin, where it will begin production in the coming seven months. The plant is aiming an output of one million cloned cows per year by 2020. However, cattle are just the beginning of ambitions of the chief executive Xu Xiaochun.

There are also thoroughbred racehorses, pet and police dogs, well trained in searching and sniffing, in the factory pipeline.

Boyalife and its South Korean partner Sooam and the Chinese Academy of Sciences are already working together to boost primate cloning capacity for the creation of better test animals for disease study. This is just a small biological step from monkeys to humans. It is likely to trigger a number of moral and ethical controversies.

Xu said the technology was already there, and that if the technology gets permission, he doesn’t think there would be any other companies better than Boyalife to come up with a better technology.

Xu said presently, the firm does not take part in human cloning activities, and mentioned that it needs to be ‘self-restrained’ due to likely adverse reaction. However, he has pointed out that social values can change, while giving examples of changing views of homosexuality. He suggested that humans may have more choices about their own reproduction with time.

He added that sadly, the only way to have a child currently is to have it half its dad, be half its mum.

He said, “Maybe in the future you have three choices instead of one. You either have fifty-fifty, or you have a choice of having the genetics 100 percent from Daddy or 100 percent from Mummy. This is only a choice”.