Michael Martina of Reuters reports that China’s incentives suggest Beijing wants more fentanyl entering the US. He writes:
China is directly subsidizing production of illicit fentanyl precursors (which the White House disputes) for sale abroad and fueling the U.S. opioid crisis, a U.S. congressional committee said on Tuesday, releasing findings from an investigation it said unveiled Beijing’s incentives for the deadly chemicals.
China continues to provide subsidies in the form of value-added tax rebates to its companies that manufacture fentanyl analogues, precursors and other synthetic narcotics, so long as they sell them outside of China, the House of Representatives’ select committee on China said in a report.
“The PRC (People’s Republic of China) scheduled all fentanyl analogues as controlled substances in 2019, meaning that it currently subsidizes the export of drugs that are illegal under both U.S. and PRC law,” the report said, adding that some of the substances “have no known legal use worldwide.”
The report cited data from the Chinese government’s State Taxation Administration website, which listed certain chemicals for rebates up to 13%. It additionally currently subsidizes two fentanyl precursors used by drug cartels – NPP and ANPP, it said. […]
According to the Chinese government website, the subsidies remained in place as of April, the report said. […]
Fentanyl is a leading cause of drug overdoses in the United States. The U.S. has said that China is the primary source of the precursor chemicals synthesized into fentanyl by drug cartels in Mexico. Mexico’s government also has asked China to do more to control shipments of fentanyl. […]
U.S. officials have described the initial talks as substantive, but have said much more needs to be done to stem the flow of the chemicals.
The committee also said in its report that it found no evidence of new criminal enforcement actions by Beijing.
Ray Donovan, a former senior Drug Enforcement Administration official, told the hearing that the November agreement had not changed China’s support for the illicit chemical industry’s supply to the Western hemisphere.
Overdose Deaths Skyrocketed in 2023
Provisional data from CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics indicates that the predicted number of deaths from drug overdoses was 110,793 as of January 2023, up from 81,622 in May of 2020. On May 22, 2020, Washington put the Chinese Ministry of Public Security’s Institute of Forensic Science on the Entity List over alleged abuses against Uyghurs and other minority groups, effectively barring it from receiving most goods from U.S. suppliers. The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced on May 22, 2020:
Source: CDC (Based on data available for analysis on: August 4, 2024)
The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced the impending addition of the People’s Republic of China’s Ministry of Public Security’s Institute of Forensic Science and eight Chinese companies to the Entity List, which will result in these parties facing new restrictions on access to U.S. technology. These nine parties are complicit in human rights violations and abuses committed in China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, forced labor and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR). This action will supplement BIS’s first tranche of Entity List designations in October 2019 involving 28 parties engaged in the XUAR repression campaign in Xinjiang.
The US lifted Sanctions on the Chinese Police Institute
Alexandra Alper and Michael Martina of Reuters reports that a move to remove sanctions was criticized by human rights activists and Republicans, who accused the Biden administration of going soft on Beijing over its treatment of Uyghurs. They write:
The Biden administration on Thursday removed the Chinese Ministry of Public Security’s Institute of Forensic Science from a trade sanction list, part of a bid to convince Beijing to do more to halt the flow of the synthetic opioid fentanyl into the United States.
Washington put the institute on the list in 2020 over alleged abuses against Uyghurs and other minority groups, effectively barring it from receiving most goods from U.S. suppliers.
Former Chinese ambassador to the U.S. Qin Gang last year described it as “shocking” that the U.S., which had expressed frustration over Beijing’s lack of cooperation on fentanyl, would sanction an institute he described as essential to controlling the drug. […]
The move was criticized by human rights activists and Republicans, who accused the Biden administration of going soft on Beijing over its treatment of Uyghurs. […]
Blocking fentanyl “precursor” chemicals has been a priority for Washington as the rate of overdose deaths involving the drug more than tripled from 2016 through 2021, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The removal, according to a notice posted in the Federal Register, came after a “removal proposal” was received and reviewed, the department said in the posting, by a committee composed of representatives of the departments of Commerce, State, Defense, Energy, and sometimes, the Treasury.
