China cracks down on fentanyl networks after US pressure

By Antoni Slodkowski

BEIJING, March 19 (Reuters) – China has arrested seven people and subjected 12 more to “criminal compulsory measures” in a campaign targeting traffickers in fentanyl precursor chemicals, state media said on Thursday, following pressure from the United States. 

China’s first wide-publication in years of legal action that has led to the arrests of traffickers also follows weekend trade talks with the United States to prepare for a summit originally planned for the end of the month of the U.S. and Chinese leaders in Beijing.

U.S. President Donald Trump has postponed the visit over the Iran war, but said he would ​take the trip to Asia in “about five ‌or ⁠six weeks”.

Washington has sought measures from China including arresting the sellers of chemicals used to make the drug that leads to thousands of U.S. overdose deaths each year.

After returning to office at the start of last year, Trump cited China’s inaction when he imposed tariffs of 20%. They were halved after he met Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea last year, in exchange for a ‌crack⁠down on the fentanyl networks.

OPERATION TARGETED THE ENTIRE SUPPLY CHAIN

The official Xinhua news agency said the campaign in the central province of Hubei targeted the entire supply chain, from production to storage and the export of precursor chemicals and was launched in December after a directive from the public security ministry.

The agency did not specify what the “criminal compulsory measures” were.

Until now China had only issued industry notices and taken down websites that trade the chemicals. 

Chinese officials, however, have defended their record on fentanyl, saying they had taken extensive action to regulate certain precursor chemicals and have accused Washington of using the issue as blackmail.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month invalidated a 10% fentanyl-related tariff Trump had imposed on China and others under an emergency statute. The Trump administration has told ​Beijing it expected to ​reimpose that levy ⁠under a different law, a U.S. official said.

Xinhua said that “in one notable action based on information provided by U.S. drug enforcement authorities, investigators in Hubei successfully cracked a case involving the sale of state-controlled new psychoactive substances and Category II precursor chemicals for drug manufacturing”.

During the operation it said the Hubei anti-narcotics commission had “strengthened investigations into illegal activities involving fentanyl precursor chemicals, and enhanced risk-prevention measures related to the sources of such chemicals”.

(Reporting by Antoni Slodkowski, Shi Bu and Ryan Woo; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman, Clarence Fernandez and Barbara Lewis)