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China’s decision to stop working with the US in the war on drugs is expected to have little impact on fentanyl smuggling, but drug policy experts are not confident about the prospects for the two countries working together in future.
Beijing froze cooperation with Washington earlier this month in retaliation for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan – which it saw as a serious violation of its sovereignty.
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“The new tensions between the two countries may not have a significant impact on the number of fentanyl trafficking cases thwarted by Beijing, which was small to begin with,” said Spencer Li, a professor at the University of Macau and President of Asian Association of Substance Abuse Research.
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“Rather, it may undermine Beijing’s willingness to step up its efforts to stop the trafficking of fentanyl and precursor chemicals to the US and surrounding regions.”
Fentanyl, originally developed as a painkiller but now a common street drug, can be 50 times more powerful than heroin.
In 2021, nearly 108,000 people in the US died of drug overdoses, about two-thirds of which involved fentanyl or other synthetic opioids, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 2019, after years of lobbying, the US convinced China to crack down on shipments of the chemicals that can be used to make fentanyl, even though Beijing had previously said that only a small number of substances seized in the US had originated from China.
Dr Bryce Pardo, associate director at the Rand Drug Policy Research Centre, said Beijing was never too enthusiastic about the US State Department’s request to improve industry rules and oversight.
“The latest suspension of dialogue won’t have much of an effect on the bigger ticket items—as those were largely frozen anyhow – though it is likely to disrupt any ongoing or future joint investigations or liaison meetings and working groups,” Pardo said.
Mo Guanyao, a law professor at Yunnan Normal University and a member of the National Drug Control Office’s expert committee, said ending cooperation would “impact the anti-fentanyl efforts in the US to a certain degree”, but the US government should look to itself to deal with the crisis.
Narcotics control was one of the few areas where the US and China had continued to cooperate as relations worsened.
Several working groups, including the China-US Bilateral Drug Intelligence Working Group and the Counter Narcotics Working Group, were created and officials from the two countries exchanged information.
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“I hope the interruption is temporary and cooperation will resume soon, but I see no reason to be optimistic. With the escalating tensions between the two countries, it could be a long time before they decide to cooperate again in this area,” said Li from the University of Macau.
Roderic Broadhurst, a professor of criminology at the Australian National University, also said it was unlikely that there would be a swift resumption of cooperation, but said it would be in the interests of all sides, including neighbouring countries to resume effective mutual legal assistance.
“The only way to effectively suppress this lethal trade is through joint cross-border law enforcement operations” Broadhurst said, adding China has also a significant and growing problem with the illicit use of drugs among its younger population.
Alternatively, the two countries might raise the levels of cooperation indirectly through multilateral, regional and United Nations initiatives, Broadhurst added.
And even if the cooperation resumes after the diplomatic relationship improves, analysts do not expect it to affect the supply of drugs destined to the US.
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The fentanyl problem is primary an issue of demand rather than supply and even if the Chinese government could somehow magically shut down the production and transport of these chemicals within a matter of months or weeks, that production would pop up elsewhere globally, said Leo Beletsky, a Northeastern University professor of law and health sciences.
“The demand for opioids in the US is not being effectively addressed. Doing so would require addressing structural drivers of substance use and addiction,” Beletsky said.
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