"The meeting sends a positive signal of cooperation at a time when China and the United States are trying to better manage their bilateral relationship. The Associated Press made the above assessment of the meeting of the head of China's National Narcotics Control Commission with the US anti-narcotics joint delegation in Beijing on January 30.
On the same day, the Sino-US Anti-Narcotics Cooperation Working Group was officially launched. This is an important move to implement the San Francisco summit between the Chinese and US leaders. In August 2022, China had to suspend China-US anti-drug cooperation due to a visit to Taiwan, China, by then-Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. This time, the Chinese and US drug law enforcement agencies have launched a consultation and cooperation mechanism, which shows that the atmosphere of contact and dialogue between the two sides continues to improve, and plays a constructive role in promoting China-US relations.
In recent years, anti-narcotics cooperation has become a China issue that the United States has been vigorously promoting. This is closely related to the loss of control of fentanyl-like substances in American society. On the 30th, officials in the U.S. state of Oregon declared a state of emergency in downtown Portland, the state, due to a public health and public safety crisis caused by the fentanyl epidemic.
Fentanyl is a potent opioid that was originally used for clinical analgesia and anesthesia. However, due to the long-standing opioid abuse problem in the United States, fentanyl-like substances have become drugs that harm society. According to data released by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration a few days ago, fentanyl has become the leading cause of death among Americans between the ages of 18 and 45 and is "the deadliest drug threat the United States has ever faced."
Why is fentanyl so abused in the United States? It has a lot to do with it. On the one hand, driven by profits, large pharmaceutical companies lobby politicians to provide policy protection, medical representatives encourage doctors to prescribe more drugs by various means, and pharmacies also vigorously peddle them, forming a complete chain of interests. On the other hand, the U.S. government is poorly regulated. In particular, in recent years, political polarization in the United States has intensified, resulting in the "shelf" of bills related to fentanyl trafficking. Looking at the US media reports, it is not difficult to find that there is a "black market" for fentanyl-type drugs in many places in the United States. In addition, the United States does not publicize the dangers of drugs enough, and more than half of the states have implemented "marijuana legalization", which has caused the abuse of fentanyl-like substances to be prominent. Some people have described the difficulty of managing fentanyl under the current system in the United States as comparable to gun control.
It can be seen that the root cause of the fentanyl abuse crisis in the United States itself reflects the failure of domestic governance in the United States. Those in power in the United States are powerless to solve the problem and habitually choose to "shift the blame" and shift the blame. The previous U.S. administration took aim at China and prosecuted and sanctioned some Chinese companies and citizens. A few years ago, when it carried out anti-narcotics cooperation with China, the United States put relevant Chinese institutions on the "entity list" for sanctions. This kind of treatment of "the United States is sick, China takes medicine" is obviously in the wrong direction. William Jones, Washington bureau chief of Global Strategy Information, pointed out, "Fentanyl abuse has become an epidemic in American society, and I have heard some media in the United States say that China is responsible, which is ridiculous." No country has done more to fight narcotics than China."
Indeed, China has suffered greatly from narcotics in its history, and since the founding of the People's Republic of China, it has always had "zero tolerance" for narcotics and severely cracked down on drug-making and trafficking and other drug-related crimes. Chinese law enforcement agencies have detected several cases of illegal processing and trafficking of fentanyl-like substances to the United States, all of which were colluded by domestic and foreign criminals to be transported to the United States through international postal parcels through camouflage, concealment, etc., but the amount is extremely limited and cannot be the main source of the United States.
In May 2019, China took the lead in the world in listing fentanyl-like substances in a whole category, with 25 substances under control, exceeding the 21 controlled by the United Nations. Since then, there has been close, candid and in-depth cooperation between the Chinese and US drug law enforcement agencies, and the US side has expressed its gratitude on many occasions. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and other drug law enforcement agencies, since September 2019, the U.S. has not seized fentanyl-like substances from China.
It should be pointed out that as the country with the most prominent fentanyl problem in the world, the United States has not officially listed fentanyl-like substances as a whole. From this point of view, Sino-US anti-narcotics cooperation can only help the US side create external conditions for resolving related issues. To truly eradicate the fentanyl crisis, the US must find its own causes, prescribe the right medicine, patch the loopholes in the system, and take strong actions.
From a broader perspective, the resumption of anti-drug cooperation between China and the United States is a signal of warming relations between China and the United States. Recently, China and the United States have been engaged in intensive communication in many areas, from people-to-people exchanges to financial dialogues, from military-to-military contacts to high-level diplomatic consultations. This shows that the two countries are gradually implementing the consensus reached at the San Francisco summit between the Chinese and US leaders. As long as China and the United States follow the correct path of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, this momentum can be sustained, and there is hope that China-US relations will continue to stabilize and recover.
[Source: CCTV News]
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