A senior ** in the United States revealed on January 28 local time that the first joint meeting of the Sino-US Anti-Drug Cooperation Working Group will be held in Beijing on the 30th, and the focus of the discussion between the two sides is the issue of fentanyl synthetic drug precursor chemicals that have plagued the United States for a long time. The working group will provide a "platform for ongoing coordination" and support bilateral enforcement action, the meeting was called a "critical moment to resolve the issue," the meeting said. The establishment of the Sino-US Anti-Narcotics Cooperation Working Group is one of the outcomes of the San Francisco meeting between the two heads of state. The United States generally believes that high-level communication and exchanges between China and the United States have increased markedly since the San Francisco meeting, and relations between the two countries are warming. It should be said that cooperation between the two countries in the fight against narcotics is precisely one aspect of the positive effect of communication.
Even before the joint meeting, the United States** had relatively positive expectations for its results, which has rarely been the case in recent years. On the one hand, the overall atmosphere between China and the United States has maintained a momentum of stabilization and recovery after the San Francisco meeting, and communication in all aspects is moving along the blueprint planned by the "San Francisco Vision", and some solid ice is gradually melting, which provides more confidence for the two countries to pragmatically solve some problems. On the other hand, the more the US looks at China and China-US relations from a rational perspective, the more it will appreciate the weight of China's responsible handling of bilateral relations.
The U.S. has come full circle in seeking cooperation with China to jointly resolve the fentanyl problem. The United States once tried to force China by means of fierce confrontation and maximum pressure, sanctioned Chinese companies, and launched a ** offensive to pour a lot of dirty water on China, some of which were completely unreasonable. All these words and deeds, together with other words and deeds to contain China, have completely destroyed the atmosphere of Sino-US cooperation. The costs and lessons learned by the United States in doing so are profound, and the time and energy that should have been used to solve the problem have been wasted.
Drugs are a public nuisance to mankind, and China has always had "zero tolerance" for drugs, and the intensity of the crackdown on drugs has never fluctuated due to changes in Sino-US relations. The control of fentanyl-like substances is unprecedented in China's routine drug control practice, and is a concrete embodiment of China's practice of the concept of co-governance of the global drug problem. Since May 1, 2019, when fentanyl-like substances were put under control, China has adopted a series of effective measures to crack down on and rectify them, which have played an important role in preventing the illegal manufacture, trafficking and abuse of such substances, and have been fully recognized by the international community.
China has kept its promises and done what it says. Judging by the reaction of the United States, there is no shortage of people who understand. Some U.S. experts warn that focusing too much on the top end and trying only to restrict the entry of drugs from abroad can be counterproductive, because traffickers can always find workarounds. American netizens were even more blunt, saying that the United States has "not done enough to reduce demand" and that "it is much easier to blame the Chinese." From cocaine, ** to fentanyl, "the United States has been playing whack-a-mole at home and abroad for 50 years", but "any drug" can still be bought on any street corner. To put it bluntly, Sino-US anti-drug cooperation is of great significance, but in the end, it is only an external cause for the United States, and it is up to the United States itself to save American society from the crisis of drugs and drug abuse.
In the 45 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States, the fentanyl problem is a new problem, but we still cannot understand that this is obviously a problem caused by drug abuse and poor regulation in the United States, but so much emotion has been poured out on China. This can only show that it is the inertial thinking of the United States that shifts the blame. How did the fentanyl problem arise? How did the US handle the response? How did you get to the U.S.-China negotiating table? The whole process has created a big circle, which is very much like a microcosm of Sino-US relations in recent years, leaving a lot of enlightenment and mirrors.
Fentanyl itself is not a big deal for China, but for the United States, fentanyl threatens the lives of nearly 100,000 people every year. China sympathizes with the suffering of the American people because of fentanyl, and has shown sufficient sincerity and efforts to help the United States resolve the crisis. It is hoped that when the United States handles Sino-US relations in the future, it will also be able to empathize with China and spread from the matter of fentanyl to all aspects of Sino-US relations.