3 April 2022 | Medium
Read more on Medium
The current American Opioid Crisis exists in the context of a New Opium War, fueled by China. There is thorough evidence of China’s role in the fentanyl opioid industry, as well as nationalist, historical motivations. Chinese vendors continue to circumvent weak legislation and enforcement via a profitable partnership with Mexican cartels, to package fentanyl precursors and send opioids across the border into the United States.
Fentanyl overdoses are killing more Americans than COVID-19.
Around 100 times stronger than morphine and 50 times stronger than heroin, fentanyl is a synthetic painkiller inundating the United States. It is now the number one cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 45. Users of the drug experience a fleeting sense of euphoria — yet even a few grains the size of salt can cause overdose and death. Americans who have died from fentanyl are among the famous, including musicians Prince, Tom Petty and Mac Miller.
According to the 2021 United Nations World Drug Report, North America has the highest consumption of opioids globally. For the first time in our history, more than 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses the past year — more than guns and car crashes combined. Mental health issues precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, fueled by wider availability of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, are to blame.
Fentanyl is also referred to as “China girl”, “China town”, or “China white” on the street, as it is primarily sourced and distributed by China. The Chinese pharmaceutical industry is the second largest in the world, after the United States, generating more than $100 billion in revenue. For decades, both the Obama and Trump administrations devoted significant diplomatic efforts to persuade the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government to crack down on the supply of fentanyl from China to the United States.
Government intervention and diplomatic efforts
“Fentanyl was killing people like we’d never seen before,” said Derek Maltz, former agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Operations Division. “A red light was going off, ding, ding, ding…We needed a serious sense of urgency.”
In 2017, Obama declared that the US was “seeing more and more communities being ravaged” by fentanyl. “This is not an inner-city problem, per se, but it’s reaching every community and is in some way worse in a lot of rural communities. There was a bipartisan effort to put more money into [addressing] that.” US Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) echoed Obama at a Senate hearing the same year, on US strategy to combat illicit drugs: “It appears most of the fentanyl produced in China is intended for export to our communities,” he said.
In a 2018 tweet, Trump encouraged the CCP to impose the death penalty on Chinese fentanyl vendors. Trump also stated that CCP leader Xi Jinping had told him that “China did not have a drug problem, because it could (and does) use the death penalty to punish drug dealers.” In fact, the CCP has executed Chinese citizens for far less deadly products than fentanyl: Chinese milk producers were executed in 2009 for selling tainted milk to the public.
After a decade of bipartisan US pressure, China finally announced its decision to schedule fentanyl in 2019. Scheduling* fentanyl officially prohibited the production, sales and export of all fentanyl-class drugs in China, except by authorized firms which the CCP has granted special licenses. However, the number of American deaths from fentanyl and other opioids have skyrocketed almost 30% since 2020. About 200 people die every day from fentanyl poisoning in the United States.
The New Opium War
The roots of opioid addiction, and the current opioid crisis, stretch far back into history. The First Opium War (1839–1842) was fought between China and Britain, in response to Britain’s illegal importing of opium into China from India, causing widespread addiction. The resulting defeat at the hands of the British led to the Treaty of Nanjing, which ceded Hong Kong to the British. The Second Opium War (1856–1860) fought between China, Britain and France, again resulted in Chinese government concessions including favorable tariffs and cessation of territory to Western powers. The defeat of China in both Opium Wars was interpreted as a national humiliation, and redemption has been the strategic objective of every Chinese leader since — most notably CCP leader Xi Jinping.
Xi’s Chinese leadership is rooted in CCP ideology. Two colonels in the People’s Liberation Army, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, authored a book in 1999 on military strategy against the United States, titled Unrestricted Warfare. The book laid out the case for non-military means of battling a superior opponent; a CCP strategy to “make China great again”. The influence of the CCP in Hollywood and its attempts to censor American culture and freedom of expression are well documented. Since Xi’s assumption of office in 2013, Chinese fentanyl production has also been fueling the deadliest drug epidemic in American history: The New Opium War.
Logistics of the industry: Mexico is the new India
According to an NPR investigation in 2020, Chinese fentanyl vendors are hidden in a network of corporate entities registered in smaller cities, where they use shipping methods to bypass CCP screening measures and allow thousands of fentanyl doses to be sent to the US and elsewhere. Chinese law enforcement is stricter in bigger cities such as Beijing or Shanghai, but CCP authorities continue to delay US requests for access to inspect and investigate potential sites where fentanyl precursors are made. These delays allow any illegal operation to conveniently vacate or clean up the premises before inspection. As a result, Chinese vendors have increased and diversified their operations globally.
In early 2021, Matthew Donahue, the deputy chief of foreign operations for the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), stated there is “an unlimited and endless supply of precursor chemicals coming from China to Mexico.” The Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) confirmed since 2019, Chinese producers have developed at least four more precursor substitutes, which routinely evade detection. Although known to American and Chinese authorities, the CCP has yet to ban these precursors.
The CCP utilizes the Chinese social media platform WeChat to regularly monitor the Chinese public, censoring speech and punishing people who voice discontent with the CCP government. Chinese vendors use online networks, including WeChat, to market and fund fentanyl and precursor agents, shipping them directly to the US as well as Mexican cartels who supply to the US. The Chinese “utilize those methods of communication to be able to ship drugs,” Donahue said.
Mexico is widely known as one of the top suppliers to the US for the illicit drug trade, including opioids. With Mexican authorities ramping up the destruction of poppy fields across the country used to produce opioids, the cartels have shifted to synthetic opioids like fentanyl, which are cheaper to make and more profitable. Diego Valle-Jones, a researcher whose projects focus on crime and drugs in Mexico, describes the partnership that has evolved between Mexican cartels and Chinese fentanyl vendors:
“Producing [opioids] from opium poppies is an intensive process, requiring many people and lots of land to plant and harvest the crop. It’s much cheaper to manufacture synthetic drugs like fentanyl, since all you need is a lab with no need to grow poppies. Some fentanyl is sent to the US directly from China, but in recent years, the precursors to manufacture fentanyl have been shipped to Mexico from China, where the fentanyl is combined with heroin [and other opioids] and then taken to the US.”
Reflecting on the CCP decision in 2019 to schedule fentanyl, the DEA noted in 2021 that Mexican cartels “remain the primary source of supply for heroin and fentanyl smuggled into the United States, using precursors primarily sourced from China.” Chinese vendors have easily increased fentanyl precursor sales to Mexican cartels, thereby fueling the American opioid crisis.
International legal cooperation
The United States, along with 40 other countries, is a signatory to a mutual legal assistance treaty that allows “for the general exchange of evidence and information in criminal and related matters.” In 2020, Mexican authorities seized almost three thousand pounds of fentanyl, a substantial increase from 2019. They also raided almost double the number of fentanyl laboratories. While Mexican government authorities regularly collaborate with the US on fentanyl seizures, the CCP has been less cooperative. An investigation published in 2021 by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission found that China remains the primary country of origin for illicit fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States.
The United States and China also signed a mutual legal assistance treaty in June 2000. As a signatory to the treaty, the CCP is required to comply with US requests for legal assistance. In a rare admission, the CCP Office of National Narcotic Control Commission in 2019 said US-China cooperation on investigating and prosecuting fentanyl remains “extremely limited.” The US State Department reported in 2020 that “China has not cooperated sufficiently on financial investigations and does not provide adequate responses to requests for financial investigation information.” American law enforcement officials have noted that the CCP’s “limited cooperation” with the United States on fentanyl contrasts sharply with the CCP’s cooperative efforts with Australia. In 2017, Australia was the only Western country to have a joint task force with China’s National Narcotics Control Bureau. In December 2021, the Biden administration announced that it would establish a US Council on Transnational Organized Crime, and imposed sanctions on Chinese and foreign persons involved in the global illicit drug trade for fentanyl.
Lessons of history
We live in a time where the two most powerful societies and economies in the world, the United States and China, are also adversaries that are dependent on one another. The First and Second Opium Wars in the mid-19th century inundated and crippled China with opiates. China is now taking on the role of perpetrator, inundating the United States with fentanyl and other opiates in a New Opium War of the 21st century.
The CCP should enforce their largely symbolic 2019 regulation to schedule fentanyl; expand the precursors included in the ban and crack down on Chinese vendors proliferating the industry. The United States and its allies should continue to combat the opioid crisis at home and abroad. If any lesson can be learned from the Opium Wars, it is a disgrace for a government not to protect its people; to be blind to the lessons of history and the ultimate welfare of humanity.
[1st linked citation], [2nd linked citation] Sources: https://kslnewsradio.com/1961458/fentanyl-overdoses-killing-more-americans-than-covid-19/ and https://familiesagainstfentanyl.org
[3] 2020 Brookings report, “Fentanyl and geopolitics: Controlling opioid supply from China”: https://www.brookings.edu/research/fentanyl-and-geopolitics-controlling-opioid-supply-from-china/
[4] Fentanyl Fatalities Factsheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S0szR2Ua9v0Sr91YhDD7gPrXsDkHxDvP/view
[5] Washington Post, 2019: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/fentanyl-epidemic-obama-administration/
[6] See Fig. 14, “Use of opioids, by region and subregion”, UN World Drug Report 2021: https://www.unodc.org/res/wdr2021/field/WDR21_Booklet_2.pdf
[7] Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), covering the period of April 2020–2021: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2021/20211117.htm
[8] The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH): https://www.camh.ca/en/health-info/mental-illness-and-addiction-index/street-fentanyl
[9] CNBC, 2018: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/05/trump-calls-on-china-to-seek-death-penalty-for-fentanyl-distributors.html
[10] Fox News, 2019: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/obama-administration-slow-to-answer-early-alarms-about-fentanyl-report
[11] Vox, 2017: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/6/14193334/obama-vox-interview-transcript
[12] NCBI, 2017: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5565130/
[13] CNBC, 2018: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/05/trump-calls-on-china-to-seek-death-penalty-for-fentanyl-distributors.html
[14] Time, 2019: https://time.com/5660390/trump-china-fentanyl-mail-drug-trafficking/
[15] NYT, 2009: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/world/asia/25china.html
*To schedule a drug at the most basic level, government authorities evaluate whether a drug can be abused. In broad terms, if the answer is yes, then it is scheduled. The medical value of the drug and its relative potential for abuse are evaluated to determine policy and law enforcement.
[16] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Nov. 2021: “Drug Overdose Deaths in the U.S. Top 100,000 Annually”: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2021/20211117.htm
[17] Families Against Fentanyl, 2021: https://familiesagainstfentanyl.org
[18] Getty Research, First Opium War (1839–1842): https://www.getty.edu/cona/CONAIconographyRecord.aspx?iconid=901001459
[19] War on the Rocks, “Make China Great Again: Xi’s Truly Grand Strategy”: https://warontherocks.com/2019/10/make-china-great-again-xis-truly-grand-strategy/
[20] The American Conservative, May 2021, “Hollywood’s Other Foreign Censor: Saudi Arabia”: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/hollywoods-other-foreign-censor-saudi-arabia/
[21] The Atlantic, Sept. 2021, “How Hollywood Sold Out to China”: https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/09/how-hollywood-sold-out-to-china/620021/
[22] Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy, Feb. 2022 release: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1984878999/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1984878999&linkCode=as2&tag=erichschwartz-20&linkId=a6df246e27ac5ffdb714cbf9afe611e9
[23] See footnote 4.
[24] NPR, ‘We Are Shipping To The U.S.’: Inside China’s Online Synthetic Drug Networks: https://www.npr.org/2020/11/17/916890880/we-are-shipping-to-the-u-s-china-s-fentanyl-sellers-find-new-routes-to-drug-user
[25] US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Aug. 2021: “Illicit Fentanyl from China: An Evolving Global Operation”: https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2021-08/Illicit_Fentanyl_from_China-An_Evolving_Global_Operation.pdf
[26] Official, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, interview with Commission staff, March 15, 2021: https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2021-08/Illicit_Fentanyl_from_China-An_Evolving_Global_Operation.pdf
[27] Michael Lohmuller, Nicole Cook, and Logan Pauley, “Lethal Exchange: Synthetic Drug Networks in the Digital Era,” C4ADS, January 2020: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/566ef8b4d8af107232d5358a/t/5fb3077189409576d229502a/1605568376184/Lethal_Exchange_Spread.pdf
[28] See “Table 1: Popular Known Fentanyl Precursors China Has Not Banned”: https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2021-08/Illicit_Fentanyl_from_China-An_Evolving_Global_Operation.pdf
[29] The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 2020: https://www.wsj.com/articles/wechat-becomes-a-powerful-surveillance-tool-everywhere-in-china-11608633003
[30] NPR, Nov. 2020: “‘We Are Shipping To The U.S.’: Inside China’s Online Synthetic Drug Networks”: https://www.npr.org/2020/11/17/916890880/we-are-shipping-to-the-u-s-china-s-fentanyl-sellers-find-new-routes-to-drug-user
[31] Chris Adams, “The Fentanyl Surge,” National Press Foundation, April 21, 2021: https://nationalpress.org/topic/the-fentanyl-surge/
[32] U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Oversight of Federal Efforts to Combat the Spread of Illicit Fentanyl Hearing, QFR Response of Thomas Overacker, April 10, 2020; U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, 2020 National Drug Threat Assessment, March 2021: https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-008- 20%20Fentanyl%20Flow%20in%20the%20United%20States_0.pdf
[33] U.S. Department of State, Treaties and Mutual Agreements, July 29, 2021: https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2012/vol2/184110.htm
[34] Reuters, Dec. 2020: “Mexico says fentanyl seizures up almost six-fold in 2020”: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-drugs/mexico-says-fentanyl-seizures-up-almost-six-fold-in-2020-idUSKBN2951KV
[35] USCC, Aug. 2021, “Illicit Fentanyl from China: An Evolving Global Operation”: https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2021-08/Illicit_Fentanyl_from_China-An_Evolving_Global_Operation.pdf
[36] U.S. Department of State, Treaties in Force: A List of Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States in Force on January 1, 2020: https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/TIF-2020-Full-website-view.pdf
[37] 2020 International Narcotic Control Strategy Report (INCSR) on Money Laundering: https://www.state.gov/2020-international-narcotics-control-strategy-report/
[38] Defense One, 2021: https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2021/12/chinese-firms-targeted-new-biden-orders-meant-curb-fentanyl-synthetic-drugs/359825/