US, China Restart Talks on Fentanyl Crackdown

U.S. Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Homeland Security Adviser Jen Daskal (C) speaks during a meeting with Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on Jan. 30, 2024. Ng Han Guan/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

U.S. and Chinese officials sat down in Beijing on Tuesday for their first talks in years on combating the illicit trafficking of fentanyl, a deadly synthetic drug that has killed thousands of Americans each year.

Tuesday’s meeting marked the first discussion of a new working group established after U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s communist regime leader Xi Jinping agreed to restart the cooperation in countering the narcotics trade, one of the achievements of the two leaders’ meeting in San Francisco last November.

At Beijing’s Diaoyutai guesthouse, Wang Xiaohong, China’s public security minister, said his deputy, who attended the closed-door talks earlier in the day, described the atmosphere as good. “We had in-depth communication and were pragmatic. We reached a common understanding on the work plan,” Mr. Wang said through an interpreter.

Jen Daskal, deputy homeland security adviser, said President Biden sent a high-level delegation to “underscore the importance of this issue to the American people.”

Senior U.S. officials from the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, State, and Treasury participated in Tuesday’s talks. U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns was also in attendance.

US–China Cooperation on Fentanyl

In recent years, U.S. lawmakers have been seeking to stop the flow of fentanyl from coming into the nation, which they said has become the biggest killer of Americans aged 18 to 49.

The global fentanyl supply chain, according to U.S. officials, often started from chemical manufacturers in China. Drug cartels in Mexico purchase raw materials, known as precursors, from China and press the chemicals into pills before selling them on U.S. soil.

The Chinese regime had previously rejected the U.S. requests for cooperation amid deteriorating relations between the two major powers, often responding that the United States should focus on resolving its domestic issues and stop blaming other countries.

Talks were formally put on hold in August 2022, when China suspended cooperation in several areas, including counternarcotics, following then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

Senior U.S. officials have repeatedly pressed China to address the fentanyl issues last year. But Beijing refused to discuss cooperation unless Washington lifted sanctions on the Public Security Ministry’s Institute of Forensic Science. The Commerce Department imposed the sanctions in 2020, accusing the state agency of complicity in human rights violations against Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in China’s Xinjiang region.

The Biden administration agreed to lift the sanctions last November as part of the deal with Beijing to get its cooperation on fentanyl, drawing criticism from Republicans. State Department spokesperson Matt Miller called it “an appropriate step to take,” given what China was willing to do on the trafficking of fentanyl precursors.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi acknowledged “the removal of the obstacle of unilateral sanctions” in a speech on China–U.S. relations earlier this month.

U.S. Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Homeland Security Adviser Jen Daskal (2nd L) and Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (2nd R) attend a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on Jan. 30, 2024. Ng Han Guan/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

US Fentanyl Crisis

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that can be up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. Only one pill could cause deadly consequences, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

From 2016 to 2021, drug overdose deaths involving the highly addictive fentanyl more than tripled, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The fentanyl-related death rate increased from 5.7 per 100,000 people in 2016 to 21.6 per 100,000 in 2021, the CDC said. The death toll continued to go up in 2022. Nearly 70 percent of the reported 107,081 drug overdose deaths involved synthetic opioids, a class dominated by fentanyl, a federal estimate shows.

Across the country, fentanyl was found being combined with street drugs such as cocaine and heroin. Furthermore, fentanyl could also be used to make counterfeit pills.

Chinese Criminal Network Linkage to the CCP

A recent report from the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, predicted that China-linked criminal networks, which involve actors behind the illegal drug trade, are “likely to expand their geographic reach and deep role in various illegal economies” in 2024.

“Beijing rarely acts against the top echelons of Chinese criminal syndicates. This is especially true for those who also service Chinese authorities’ objectives, unless they specifically contradict a narrow set of Chinese government interests,” it said.

Chinese criminal networks provide a variety of services to the authorities, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the country’s legal enterprise, researchers said, including monitoring the Chinese diaspora and taking action against those who speak or go against the CCP. “Thus, Chinese government officials often unofficially extend the umbrella of party protection and government authority to these actors,” the think tank said.

Facing intense international pressure, the Chinese regime may take action against the country’s criminal groups, it said, but “its robustness is a function of its geopolitical orientation and bilateral relations.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.