After the UK and US both banned export of crowd control weapons to HK, and more and more Chinese made tear gases started to fill the air, I spent time digging up the history of these weapons and problems of its international trade. Latest BBW Chinese magazine cover story by me: 
Some highlights for English readers:
1/ There are tonssss of privacy around imports and exports, and lack of transparency: At first I wanted to try and map out the supply chain of the Hong Kong police force, like total money spent, which companies are supplying them etc. ...
1/ There are tonssss of privacy around imports and exports, and lack of transparency: At first I wanted to try and map out the supply chain of the Hong Kong police force, like total money spent, which companies are supplying them etc. ...
... Tried bill of lading, tender records, HS codes and other “traditional supply chain journalism tools” and they all failed. The HK police denied revealing details on imports. The Commerce Dept also said that licenses are to be kept private.
2/ So I turned to the history of crowd control weapons and the trade itself. The invention of crowd control weapons has a close connection with war and colonial history. Tear gas was commercialized first in the US because people involved in WWI wanted to create a peacetime market
It was then sold to companies during the recession to suppress strikes in the US, and used to stop uprisings in UK and French colonies. The way markets and supply chains look today still follow this pattern. Eg. UK’s PW Defence (ex- Chemring Defence) was a major supplier of HK.
3/ Yes, non-lethal weapons can be lethal if being misused. There are international policing standards set by the UN – published on 1979, 1990 and 2018 – on the use of these weapons, but they are not legally binding ...
It’s for the state to set laws, licenses etc. to regulate the trade. For example the US issues exporting licenses to companies producing crowd control weapons, if clients violates human rights while using these products, the US has a right to stop issuing licenses, or ban exports
4/ This leaves room for corruption if a country or company is willing to put profits before human rights: According to market reports, the crowd control weapons market is projected to grow to US$8.37 bln by 2020, fueled by increasing political disputes and civil unrest.
And vague definitions, loose export regulations and failure of governments to hold police or manufacturers accountable all gave rise to this dangerous business in profiting from protests on the streets.
5/ China as a growing manufacturer: In 2003, 28 Chinese companies documented by Omega Research Foundation were related in the business, in 2014, there were more than 130. Most of the major manufacturers are state-owned.
China Jing An Import & Export Corporation, who exports hand-thrown tear gas canisters to Hong Kong, was a former trading arm of the Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China...
Judging from tender documents and lawsuits they still are now, but the info was taken down from their website: ccgp.gov.cn/cggg/zygg/cjgg…
tianyancha.com/lawsuit/e3d806…
tianyancha.com/lawsuit/e3d806…
A HK-registered company, 中國京安國際警用裝備集團有限公司, which also has "京安" in its official name, is registered under director Zhao Lingli and address East Chang’an Avenue 14, Dongcheng District, Beijing City, China, MPS's headquarters.
NORINCO, who exports 37/38mm tear gases to Hong Kong, is a hug research and development hub for crowd control weapons. It's sitting on a wide range of tech that has not yet been used on the streets. Eg. An earlier version of a crowd control vehicle was used in Venezuela in 2017.
Questions to ask for Chinese exports in the meantime are thus, whether Hong Kong would become the next testing ground for early day crowd control tech, and whether China would develop export controls to uses that violates human rights. Note that if China doesn't see exports to...
Hong Kong as "international trade", international trading regulations wouldn't apply anyways.
