Q:The US claims that drug overdose kills 100,000 people in the U.S. every year, and it is unacceptable for China to suspend counternarcotics cooperation with the US. What is your comment?

A: In disregard of China’s stern warnings and repeated representations, Nancy Pelosi visited China’s Taiwan region. This has dealt a heavy blow to the political foundation of China-US relations. The Chinese side announced eight countermeasures including suspending China-US counternarcotics cooperation. This is a firm and strong response to the US and “Taiwan independence” separatists’ provocation. It is completely justified, appropriate and proportionate. 

The root cause of the fentanyl abuse crisis in the US lies in the US itself. The international community, China included, has been strengthening control of fentanyl-related substances, while in the US, abuse of synthetic opioids including fentanyl has been deteriorating. There have been more deaths from overdose. The US should seriously reflect on the underlying reason. According to data from the International Narcotics Control Board, the US is the world’s largest producer and consumer of fentanyl-related substances. With five percent of the world’s population, the US consumes 80 percent of opioids in the world. The US government has lost effective control over the management of prescription drugs. There aren’t enough public awareness campaigns about the harm of narcotics, and measures to reduce demand and ban narcotics have not worked well. The US must look squarely at its own problem instead of deflecting blame.

China has made tremendous efforts to help the US solve its fentanyl issue. There is no immediate hazard or large-scale fentanyl abuse in China. China has always acted in a humanitarian and responsible way in helping the US solve the fentanyl abuse crisis and working with other countries to address new challenges in counternarcotics. The UN Conventions on drug control scheduled 27 categories of fentanyl substances. China was the first in the world to have scheduled fentanyl as a class, covering more categories than what are scheduled by the UN Conventions. In contrast, while the US has the most acute fentanyl challenge in the world, it has yet to officially schedule fentanyl-related substances as a class. China has shown utmost goodwill and sincerity and gone out of our way to work together with the US in this area, which is unprecedented in our drug control practice. This has not only played an important role in preventing the illicit manufacturing, trafficking and abuse of fentanyl-related substances, but also set a fine example for international counternarcotics cooperation and has been fully recognized by the international community.

The responsibility for undermining China-US counternarcotics cooperation is entirely on the US. It has been over two years since the US put the Institution of Forensic Science of the Ministry of Public Security and the National Narcotics Laboratory of China, which are responsible for testing and controlling fentanyl-related substances, on the US’s “entity list” in the name of so-called human rights issues in Xinjiang. They still have not been removed from the list. The US has been publicly making irresponsible remarks and repeatedly rehashing old cases. The US has sanctioned Chinese companies in the name of controlling fentanyl-related substances and offered high reward for the arrest of certain Chinese citizens. The US has done this to mislead the public, deflect the blame, and shift away the responsibility for botched response to narcotics abuse in the US. China has made démarches with the US side over this multiple times, but has received no response. All the consequences arising therefrom, including the damage caused to bilateral relations and China-US counternarcotics cooperation must be borne by the US side.

China takes a firm stance on counternarcotics. China has achieved notable results in counternarcotics governance despite the global spread of narcotics. As a responsible major country, China will as always actively participate in international and multilateral counternarcotics cooperation and contribute China’s expertise and effort to global counternarcotics efforts. We also sincerely hope that the US can find an effective solution to the fentanyl abuse in the country at an early date so that the American people can rid themselves of the scourge of narcotics sooner rather than later.