In Depth: Elite Shooting Coach Jailed as ‘Gun Parts’ Case Shakes Sports System

1. Tian Hong, a renowned Chinese sharpshooter who in 1987 both shattered a national record and equaled a world record, retired to become a coach and reached national-level coaching rank in 2020. However, in late 2025, at age 58, Tian was sentenced by a Beijing court to 10 years in prison for smuggling gun components. In the same case, her 33-year-old son, Fu Yihan, was sentenced to six years. Their crime involved importing precision air-gun parts from Germany and Switzerland to sell to Chinese provincial sports teams in urgent need of equipment. The verdict, delivered in late November 2025, sent shockwaves through China's shooting sports community, revealing major problems in the country's state-controlled import system for sporting goods and sparking debates over the definition of gun components. Tian and her son have appealed the verdict. [para. 1][para. 2][para. 3][para. 4][para. 5]

2. Tian's legal troubles began in December 2023 when Beijing customs officials detained her and Fu for investigation. Authorities alleged that from 2015 to 2023, their company, Guangzhou Pilin Sports Technology Co. Ltd., imported high-end sporting gun components from prominent European brands. lacking a license to import weapon parts, Tian and Fu allegedly paid travelers to smuggle parts from Hong Kong or used customs brokers to falsify import declarations. The court found they smuggled 2,446 parts in total, with 273 classified as gunpowder firearm components and the rest as air gun parts. The equipment was distributed to shooting teams and sports schools across 26 provinces. Tian acknowledged the smuggling but insisted her intent was to solve widespread equipment shortages, taking a margin for tariffs and transaction costs. Certain items were disguised in customs declarations as generic goods to evade scrutiny, an act her broker later admitted to. [para. 6][para. 7][para. 8][para. 9][para. 10][para. 11][para. 12]

3. The severity of Tian and Fu’s sentences centers on China's strict gun control laws and the ambiguous definition of “gun parts.” Their defense argued that many seized items, like optical sights, are not unique to firearms and can be obtained freely elsewhere. Furthermore, the air cylinders involved were argued to be harmless in isolation. However, under Chinese judicial interpretation, unauthorized import of gun components is handled extremely strictly, and technical tests found the equipment to exceed China’s minimal muzzle energy standard defining a firearm. Although the judges recognized the low social risk because the equipment circulated only among athletes and not the general public, they still imposed substantial prison sentences, albeit lower than the minimum prescribed by law. [para. 13][para. 14][para. 15][para. 16]

4. The underlying root of the smuggling stemmed from China’s state-controlled monopoly over sporting firearm imports. Only one authorized company, Huaxing Rongyao (Beijing) Sports Goods Co. Ltd., can purchase and distribute such equipment to athletic programs. This system, designed for security, suffers from slow delivery, high prices, and incomplete inventory, according to coaches and insiders. Essential consumable parts often fail unexpectedly, and teams unable to buy replacements in the annual procurement window must wait up to a year for new parts—sometimes sidelining equipment from competition. Evidence presented at trial indicated that even officials from the monopoly company and government sports schools used Tian's company to bypass the inefficient state system. [para. 17][para. 18][para. 19][para. 20][para. 21]

5. The Tian Hong case set off a sweeping crackdown in China’s sports sector. Authorities launched internal audits and discovered over 100 units in 29 provinces had purchased from Tian’s company. As a result, maintenance of equipment came to a standstill: confiscated air cylinders left provincial teams cannibalizing new rifles for spare parts or forcing athletes to share limited functional weapons during competitions. The crackdown also halted the practice whereby international manufacturers sent experts and parts for repairs during Chinese competitions, leaving teams without technical support and repairs. The case has thus brought Chinese competitive shooting into disarray and highlighted fundamental supply chain and regulatory flaws in the system. [para. 22][para. 23][para. 24][para. 25][para. 26][para. 27]