China has strengthened controls on two chemicals that can be used to make fentanyl, its latest step in addressing an issue that has become tangled in its broader trade dispute with the United States.
The Trump administration has accused Beijing of not doing enough to stem the flow of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, into the United States, where it kills tens of thousands of Americans each year. Earlier this year, the administration cited the issue as it imposed tariffs totaling 20 percent on Chinese goods.
This week, six Chinese government agencies said they had added two chemicals, 4-piperidone and 1-Boc-4-piperidone, to a list of so-called precursor chemicals, or base ingredients, for fentanyl that would be more strictly controlled, according to a joint statement.
The move “demonstrates China’s sincerity in wanting to work with the United States on this issue,” said Yun Sun, the director of the China program at the Stimson Center, a Washington research institute.
The new restrictions, which take effect on July 20, were announced days after China’s minister of public security, Wang Xiaohong, met with David Perdue, the recently appointed U.S. ambassador to China, in Beijing last week to discuss efforts to fight drug trafficking.
The United States has accused Chinese producers of supplying drug cartels with the ingredients to make fentanyl, which the cartels smuggle into the United States.
China has maintained, however, that it is not responsible for America’s fentanyl crisis, which it says is rooted in the abuse of prescription painkillers and ineffective regulation in that country.
“We’ve repeatedly made it clear that fentanyl is the United States’ problem, not China’s,” Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, said on Tuesday. “It’s the United States’ responsibility to solve the issue.”
The tariffs imposed by the Trump administration over fentanyl are still in place, even though overall levies on Chinese goods came down to 55 percent from 145 percent or more in May, after the two countries agreed to a truce in their trade war.
Chinese restrictions on its exports of crucial minerals recently threatened to derail that détente, but President Trump and China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, agreed to revive trade talks during a call this month. The two leaders also discussed the possibility of meeting in China.
Wu Xinbo, the dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said that China would like to host Mr. Trump, but that it depended on progress made on disputes over trade and issues like fentanyl.
Another option, Mr. Wu said, could be for the two leaders to meet on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Seoul, which starts in late October. Mr. Xi usually attends the summit, and American presidents have typically done so, but neither leader has said whether he will participate in this one.
Berry Wang contributed research.
David Pierson covers Chinese foreign policy and China’s economic and cultural engagement with the world. He has been a journalist for more than two decades.
Keith Bradsher is the Beijing bureau chief for The Times. He previously served as bureau chief in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Detroit and as a Washington correspondent. He has lived and reported in mainland China through the pandemic.
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