Monday, December 16, 2013

China's Exports of Small Arms and Light Weapons

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) published in October 2013 a policy paper titled "China's Exports of Small Arms and Light Weapons" by Mark Bromley, Mathieu Duchatel and Paul Holtom.  It notes that Africa accounted for the largest share of reported imports of Chinese military small arms and light weapons (SALW).  The report identifies in particular Chinese arms that have ended up in Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Darfur in Sudan (page 16 of the report).  Some of the exports of Chinese SALW to Africa have involved European arms brokers.  While there are references to Africa throughout the report, pages 41 to 47 focus exclusively on Sub-Saharan Africa.