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Agence France-Presse

The US-China trade war truce includes a pledge by Beijing to tackle another lucrative – and deadly – export: fentanyl, a potent opioid ravaging US communities.
Washington has pressed Beijing to do more to crack down on the drug, as smugglers from China are suspected of being the main suppliers of the narcotic, which is 50 times stronger than heroin.
At the G20 summit in Argentina over the weekend, China agreed to designate any type of fentanyl as controlled substances, with the US saying this would expose offenders to the maximum penalty under Chinese law – capital punishment.
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the move could be a “game changer”.
“If China cracks down on this ‘horror drug,’ using the Death Penalty for distributors and pushers, the results will be incredible!” Trump tweeted.
But experts doubt it will make a major difference.
Fentanyl production had become a “very profitable” business for Chinese traffickers, said Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations at the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
It would be tough for Beijing to control the business, he said, “especially given the huge demand that we currently have in the United States”.
Big drug bust is a win in the China-US war against fentanyl, but opioid chemists are skirting ban by cooking up clones the law has never seen
China is believed to be one of the main manufacturers of synthetic drugs that have been blamed for public health crises in the US, Canada and Australia among other countries.
Getting the drug is relatively easy: buyers find fentanyl from suppliers online, pay for it with cryptocurrencies, credit cards or money transfers, and receive their order via international mail services, according to a US congressional report.

Vigil said it had become a booming business for clandestine chemical labs in China, where a single kilogram of fentanyl could produce 50kg (110lbs) of “high grade” heroin, turning a less than US$10,000 investment into half a million dollars.
According to the US Centres for Disease Control, deaths from drug overdose in the US surged to nearly 72,000 last year – far more than traffic accident deaths, gun-related deaths, or suicide. Fentanyl was linked to the deaths of singers Prince and Tom Petty.
US and China reach 90-day trade tariff ceasefire after China agrees to buy ‘very substantial’ amount of American goods
At first glance, China does not seem like an ideal base for manufacturing and shipping fentanyl to the United States. Scarred by its own opium crisis in the 19th century, Beijing has a zero-tolerance policy towards illicit drugs.
But chemical distributors in China have been able to dodge international and domestic law enforcement with fentanyl, which does have legal uses, such as treating extreme pain for cancer patients. Beijing has previously banned fentanyl variant by variant.
Savvy chemists would simply tweak their chemical formula, creating an analogue or slightly different chemical compound to bypass regulations.
China’s decision to list all fentanyl-like substances could address that issue, but systemic challenges remain.
“It seems to be that China just has a huge chemical and pharmaceutical industry, and they just have too many firms and too few police to manage that industry,” said Bryce Pardo, a drug policy researcher at Rand Corporation, a US-based think tank.
According to a 2015 US State Department report, China had about 400,000 chemical manufacturers and distributors.
It also has an unknown number of underground chemical labs that produce synthetic drugs. In 2015, Chinese authorities destroyed 259 labs and arrested 1,570 suspects, according to a 2017 US State Department report.
The interests of provincial and central government authorities were also misaligned, Pardo said. Beijing set the rules but turned enforcement over to local authorities, “who are incentivised to export as much product as possible”, he said.
China’s fentanyl firms back crackdown on opioid
China’s foreign ministry said before the latest G20 talks that it had taken measures to control 25 fentanyl analogues, increased intelligence sharing with other countries and strengthened checks of suspicious parcels.
“The US government surely has a bigger role to play in reducing the demand,” ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said.
“The US has time and again accused China of being a key source of the fentanyl-like substances at home, but never submitted any accurate statistics or effective evidence to the Chinese side,” he said.
Even if China successfully cracks down on fentanyl, it is likely that another hub of synthetic opioid production will pop up elsewhere, experts said.
Fentanyl production could move to India, which had an enormous pharmaceutical industry and labour supply with “the technical know-how to synthesise these chemicals”, Pardo said.
Production of illicit drugs will not stop at fentanyl either.
US report says China not moving fast enough to stem flow of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids
According to China’s narcotics control commission, domestic seizures of methamphetamine, ketamine and other synthetic drugs climbed 106 per cent year on year in 2016, and synthetic drug production was rising.
Michelle Miao, an expert on China’s legal system at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said enforcing harsher punishments would not necessarily address the growing global drug demand.
The US “launched the war on drugs in the past century, but what you can see now is it is a total failure” she said.
“Criminal law should be the last bulwark when things are out of control”, she said. “The last measure we can do is mete out punishment, because it does not really solve the root issues.”


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Fentanyl and other opioids

China’s pledge to crack down on fentanyl producers, smugglers will not end US opioid crisis, experts say

Washington has pressed Beijing to do more to crack down on the production and supply of fentanyl, which is 50 times stronger than heroin. Photo: AFP

This picture taken on May 25, 2014 shows drugs discovered by police after they arrested a suspect involved with drug crimes in Beijing. Beijing police arrested 5 foreigners involved with drug trafficking and dealing in a recent move against drug crimes, local media reported.   CHINA OUT     AFP PHOTO (Photo by STR / AFP)

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Production of drug is ‘very profitable’ business for traffickers, says former chief of international operations at US drug agency
Deaths from drug overdose in US surged to nearly 72,000 last year, according to US Centres for Disease Control


Production of drug is ‘very profitable’ business for traffickers, says former chief of international operations at US drug agency


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US-China trade war

US-China trade war: All stories