China and US agree to scientist exchanges in fight against synthetic drugs trade
- Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong meets US National Drug Control Policy director Rahul Gupta to ‘address shared threat’
China and the United States have agreed to establish a direct line of communication and to continue regular exchanges between scientists on potential synthetic drugs.
The agreement came during high-level talks in Beijing on Thursday between China’s public security chief, Wang Xiaohong, and Rahul Gupta, director of National Drug Control Policy, along with a delegation of senior officials.
The White House said the meeting was intended “to follow up on the commitment on counternarcotics cooperation” made by US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Woodside summit in California in November.
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During the meeting, the two sides discussed “the importance of counternarcotics cooperation and the critical need to deliver tangible and sustainable results in addressing the shared threat posed by synthetic drug production and trafficking”.
“Both sides committed to alerting one another of the emergence of newly detected synthetic substances that present a potential emerging drug threat to both countries through establishing a direct line of communication and to continue regular scientist-to-scientist exchanges on this topic, with the next exchange taking place later in June,” the US said in a statement.
According to a statement from the Chinese side, Wang told Gupta that China was willing to “continue to strengthen bilateral and multilateral exchanges and cooperation in the anti-drug field with the US on the basis of mutual respect, management of differences and mutually beneficial cooperation”.
But Wang, a close aide to Xi, also urged the US to “pay attention to and effectively address the concerns of the Chinese side” to allow “pragmatic cooperation” between the two peoples. Wang did not elaborate on what the concerns were.
Thursday’s meeting was the latest effort by Beijing and Washington to stabilise ties.