Protected Yet Trafficked in Cold War Hong Kong: Pangolins in the Global Trade of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Owing to the emerging practice and trade of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Cold War politics, and the rise of global animal-protection movements, pangolins (穿山甲) were simultaneously one of the most trafficked and most protected animals in the post-war world. This was amply demonstrated by Hong Kong’s new roles as first, an entrepôt and processing site for animals trafficked between China and Southeast Asia amidst the global trade embargo on the People’s Republic of China and second, a signatory of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Anxious not to irritate the city’s Chinese traders yet pressured to participate in the global campaign for the preservation of endangered species, the Hong Kong administration was put at a crossroads. Delving into the complex tension between the global wildlife trade and animal protection, our study will reveal not only the contradictions of colonial governance, but also the long-term reverberations of the Cold War terrain on Chinese medicine practices and wildlife.