American and Chinese officials met Tuesday to discuss joint efforts to stem the flow of fentanyl into the U.S., a sign of cooperation as the two global powers try to manage their contentious ties.
The two-day meeting was the first for a new counternarcotics working group. One focus of the talks was fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that is ravaging America, and in particular ingredients for the drug that are made in China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to restart cooperation in a handful of areas, including drug trafficking, when he and U.S. President Joe Biden met outside San Francisco in November. The agreements were a small step forward in a relationship strained by major differences on issues ranging from trade and technology to Taiwan and human rights.
The U.S. wants China to do more to curb the export of chemicals that it says are processed into fentanyl, largely in Mexico, before the final product is smuggled into the United States.
Chinese Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong said the two sides had in-depth and pragmatic talks.
“We reached a common understanding on the work plan for the working group,” he said at a ceremony marking the inauguration of the group.
The head of the U.S. team, Jen Daskal, a deputy homeland security advisor in the White House, said that Biden had sent a high-level delegation “to underscore the importance of this issue to the American people.”
China used to be a major supplier of fentanyl, and the U.S. has credited Beijing for a 2019 crackdown that led to “a drastic reduction in seizures of fentanyl shipments … from China.” Now it wants Beijing to stop the export of the ingredients known as “precursors.”
Synthetic opioids are the biggest killers in the deadliest drug crisis the U.S. has ever seen. More than 100,000 deaths were linked to drug overdoses in 2022, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than two-thirds involved fentanyl or similar synthetic drugs.
