In what the White House calls a “critical and pivotal moment,” a working group of American and Chinese representatives are holding their first-ever meeting at Beijing on Tuesday in an attempt to crack down on precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl. 

It follows President Xi’s visit to San Francisco and meeting with President Biden in November, when the leaders agreed to crack down on the flow of fentanyl.

China had already restricted the synthetic opioid in 2019 but Chinese companies remain a predominant source of the precursor chemicals that often are sold to Mexican cartels to make illicit substances, as the Sun has reported. 

While Tuesday’s meeting is touted as a sign of progress and cooperation, questions are emerging about if China will stick to its end of the bargain and whether or not the meeting will lead to real change.

The Drug Enforcement Agency announced eight indictments against Chinese chemical companies in October, and an important aspect of Tuesday’s meeting should be to find out whether China is taking its own action against those companies, a retired special agent of 30-plus years and an expert in precursor chemical supply chains, Michael Brown, tells the Sun.

“What’s China doing with that information? Are they conducting a parallel investigation? Are they planning to indict and arrest the individuals who run those companies, sanction them, seize their property, put them in jail — because that will be the pivotal decision in China, that will tell all the other illicit companies and individuals who are sending precursors and fentanyl overseas that the Chinese government is serious that they will stop it,” he says. 

Without assurance from China during the meeting that it is cracking down on these companies, “everything else,” he says, will “just be window dressing.”

While targeting fentanyl is “at the top of the wish list” and the primary focus of the Biden administration, he says, the working group meeting on Tuesday shouldn’t ignore the supply chains for other illicit substances, such as cocaine and methamphetamine.

. 

“What about all the other precursors that allow the Mexican cartels and the Colombian cartels to exist? Are we simply saying we’re only concerned about fentanyl because it’s killing people?,” Mr. Brown asks. 

Additionally, any meeting between China and America can only accomplish so much without involvement and cooperation from Mexico, he says. 

“If Mexico is not on board with whatever comes out of the Beijing meetings, then it’s not going to work. Because Mexico is the secondary checkpoint,” he notes. 

If Mexico doesn’t work as a “net” and “backup option” to catch individuals and companies distributing and buying the precursor chemicals, he says, “then fentanyl is still going to be produced and pushed into the United States.” 

It’s in China’s interest to entangle America “in controversy,” he adds, which is why China hasn’t made a big push so far to stop the precursors, and meanwhile is increasing intellectual espionage, supporting North Korea, and buying oil from Iran. 

“If you look at China’s overall increased escalation,” Mr. Brown says, “they all point towards China’s attempts to undermine American policy to weaken its capabilities, and to put China as the number one country in the world without having to actually go to war.” 

It’s important to look beyond the United States and look at the issue from a global perspective, he notes.

“China is the center of gravity for global narco trafficking and drug production that affects the U.S. So money coming from sales of drugs in Australia go back to the Sinaloa Cartel, that money goes into buying more precursors that produce fentanyl that goes into the United States,” he says. 

Another key aspect is cracking down on Chinese money laundering, because without the profit, cartels would lose incentive to push illegal drugs through the American border, he adds. The U.S. Treasury should insist upon transparency and cooperation from China to help monitor and crack down on criminal organizations that are laundering money, he says. 

“More important than cutting off the precursors is cutting off the money. Because if the Mexican cartels aren’t getting the money from the fentanyl sales, then the whole thing becomes irrelevant,” Mr. Brown says. 

“Nothing is going to change,” he adds, if China doesn’t focus on cracking down on money laundering. If the Chinese help American agencies seize those accounts,“the cartels don’t get paid,” which presents a problem for the cartels who are “in business to get their money.” 

From a domestic standpoint, the Biden administration should prioritize counter-narcotics operations, he says. 

“Right now, the Biden administration is pushing out billions of dollars for drug prevention and harm reduction, reducing money going to law enforcement, police officers,” he says. “Democratic cities all across the country are reducing the money in law enforcement and putting it into now sustaining illegal immigration, that takes money away from Counter Narcotics operations, which gives the cartels another window of opportunity.” 

Ultimately, these bilateral relationships are “like chess,” he says, and part of addressing the crisis is looking ahead to the cartels’ next move.

“If we cut the money off, and we close the border down, then we box them in, and there’s only so many moves on this narco chess board you can make before you’re out of moves,” Mr. Brown says. 

Treating fentanyl as an anomaly takes the focus away from the root of the issue, which is the cartels, the Chinese suppliers, and the profits made from the supply chain, he says. 

“People talk about fentanyl as if it’s just dropping out of the sky,” he says, but “fentanyl is just the bullet in the chamber of a gun being pointed at us by the cartels who pulled the trigger,” Mr. Brown says. 

Meanwhile, China is “playing a 100-year chess game,” he adds of “how to break America without firing a shot.” 

“Well, let’s support Iran, let’s  support North Korea, let’s support drug trafficking, let’s push Taiwan, and cripple America’s relationship,” he says of China’s strategy. “And then of course, the [Biden] administration is doing a lot of the work for us with these bad policies.”