APEC Summit: US eyes China's cooperation on fentanyl

In an effort to strengthen collaboration with Beijing to stop the flow of the synthetic opioid fentanyl into the United States, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden plans to lift restrictions on China’s Institute of Forensic Science. The U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that the rate of fentanyl overdose deaths more than tripled between 2016 and 2021, making blocking fentanyl “precursor” chemicals a top priority for Washington. On the fringes of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in San Francisco on Wednesday, Biden will speak with China’s President Xi Jinping about the issue of fentanyl. On Tuesday, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated that Washington hoped the summit would lead to measures to help fight the trafficking of fentanyl. The United States was prepared to lift restrictions on the Institute of Forensic Science, which is a division of China’s Ministry of Public Security, according to a source familiar with the plans. Due to allegations of mistreatment of Uyghurs and other minority groups, Washington placed the institute on the Commerce Department’s “entity list” in 2020, thereby preventing it from obtaining exports from the United States. China has long questioned why the United States targets the institute while expecting cooperation on fentanyl. Fentanyl is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and is increasingly mixed with other illicit drugs, often with lethal results. The number of drug-related overdose deaths in the United States exceeded 100,000 in 2021, based on official estimates. (With agency inputs)