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China cracks down on fentanyl as drug control talks with US restart after Xi-Biden summit
- Moves in keeping with agreement reached at Xi-Biden San Francisco summit in November, Chinese foreign ministry says
- Spokesman calls for ‘hard-won progress’ in resuming anti-drug cooperation to be ‘treasured by both sides’
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China says it is gradually resuming narcotics control talks with the United States and has carried out campaigns against fentanyl production.
Drug control agencies of the two countries had resumed regular contact, in keeping with an agreement reached between the US and Chinese presidents last month, the foreign ministry in Beijing said on Friday.
“Since the Americans have withdrawn their sanctions on relevant Chinese law enforcement departments, China has recently promoted some special operation on fentanyl-type substances and their precursor chemicals,” ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.
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The US removed the Chinese Ministry of Public Security’s Institute of Forensic Science from a trade blacklist a day after the November 15 summit between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping outside San Francisco. The institute, comprising a national network of crime labs, was blacklisted in 2020 over China’s alleged human rights violations against the Uygur Muslims and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities.
The lifting of the sanctions came as Xi pledged to crack down on the makers and exporters of fentanyl and its precursor chemicals.
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Wang said actions taken by China included cracking down on the smuggling, manufacture, trafficking and abuse of fentanyl and its precursor chemicals, personnel and equipment inspection at key enterprises, rectifying web information on fentanyl sales, and prevention of smuggling and trafficking of relevant chemical substances outside the country.
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