Beijing condemns US sanctions on Chinese painkiller firms

BEIJING • China hit out at the United States yesterday for its decision to impose sanctions on Chinese painkiller makers as Washington tries to curb an addiction epidemic that killed a record 100,000 Americans last year.

President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday that makes it easier for the US to target foreign drug traffickers. This comes as people dealing with addiction are increasingly turning to cheaper pills bought online from abroad.

The actions "will help disrupt the global supply chain and the financial networks that enable synthetic opioids and precursor chemicals to reach the United States", Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

China said it resolutely opposes the move. "These kinds of erroneous acts, in which one side is sick but forces the other to take the medicine, are not constructive," Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a regular media briefing in Beijing.

US law enforcement says China remains a major source of fentanyl and chemicals used to make both the powerful opioid as well as other synthetic drugs.

Beijing insists that it has taken measures to control fentanyl production and precursors.

Under Mr Biden's new executive order, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on four Chinese chemical companies and one individual, Yip Chuen Fat, whom it described as "one of the largest, if not the largest, producer of anabolic steroids in the world".

The US State Department also put up a reward offer of up to US$5 million (S$6.8 million) for the arrest of the 68-year-old, believed to be living in Wuhan.

In federal charges filed in 2018, his company was accused of producing some US$280 million of anabolic steroids over five years and sending ingredients for the painkiller fentanyl through small packages sent around the world.

Last month, US authorities seized the equivalent of US$2.3 million in the cryptocurrency Bitcoin traced back to Yip, prosecutors based in Dallas said.

The Treasury Department also imposed sanctions on two criminal drug groups in Mexico and one in Brazil. The sanctions will block any assets in the US that the groups or Yip may have and criminalise transactions from the US.

More than 100,000 Americans died in the year up till end-April from painkiller overdoses, an epidemic initially blamed on the way drug companies eagerly promoted their use, and how readily available they became to people in despair.

Mr Biden's executive order allows the US to target foreign drug makers directly rather than focusing on cartels or other criminal groups, historically the focus of US efforts. Mr Biden also established the US Council on Transnational Organised Crime, which will coordinate among departments to combat transnational crime.

A 2020 report by the US Drug Enforcement Agency said that while Mexican drug traffickers were increasingly producing tablets that are smuggled into the US, the primary source of fentanyl materials originated in China.

The report said that India, known for its giant pharmaceutical industry, was also quickly becoming a source of illicit painkillers.

Under heavy pressure from the US, China decreed a ban on fentanyl in April 2019.

A report last year by the Centre for Advanced Defence Studies said Chinese makers quickly branched out to sell the precursors inside fentanyl, which are not banned and often have legal uses as well. The Chinese sellers often sell the ingredients openly on the Web, helping to secure credibility and customers.

The prosecutors in Texas said Yip was even believed to have travelled to the US in 2015 to attend a trade show and negotiate transactions.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE