Sino-US Action Against Drugs Keeps Functional Cooperation High

Although the issue was absent from the headline highlights of the May 2026 US-China summit, commitment to fentanyl cooperation may prove one of the most substantive areas of action under their agreed framework of “constructive strategic stability”. US readouts from the summit recognise “progress in ending the flow of fentanyl precursors into the US”, reflecting satisfaction with the implementation of an agreement reached at the November 2025 summit in Busan, South Korea. The bolstered cooperation between the two great powers will have a significant impact on drug control in Southeast Asia.

Introduced in 1959, fentanyl is a potent synthetic opioid used medically as a painkiller and anaesthetic. It has a high potential for abuse and addiction. The “bad drug” side of this “good medicine” first caused recorded deaths in the late 1980s in California. By the mid-2010s, a sharp rise in fentanyl-related deaths made stemming its cross-border flow a first-order priority, with US authorities identifying China as the primary source of US-bound illicit fentanyl and fentanyl analogues.

After US President Donald Trump raised the issue in Beijing in November 2017, fentanyl became a prominent topic in bilateral relations, culminating in a 10 per cent US tariff on all Chinese imports on 1 February 2025. This was effected despite China having imposed class-wide controls over fentanyl-related substances in 2019, which ended direct flows to the US. Bilateral counter-narcotics policy interactions then shifted to precursor chemicals, other synthetic drugs and related illicit financial flows.

China’s export control regime lists controlled substances in an official Chinese catalogue. The list does not allow controlled substances to be released without prior approval by the competent authorities of a destination country. In November 2025, China added Canada, Mexico and the US to the list of countries that previously comprised Afghanistan, Laos and Myanmar. Countries in the list require special export licenses for specified precursor chemicals. China also expanded its catalogue with 13 additional substances. The updated list directly mandates that Chinese exporters obtain special government permits to ship specific precursor chemicals to North America. In effect, it restricts the unregulated flow of raw materials that transnational criminal organisations exploit.

Drug trafficking is a time-honoured socio-economic malaise that causes immense harm regardless of territorial boundaries or political differences. The emergence of synthetic drugs, which can be produced in clandestine laboratories, presents unique challenges in source tracing. Therefore, international cooperation to interdict illicit flows is in the interests of all parties concerned.

A persistent controversy in Sino-American cooperation has been the issue of extradition. In the 1988 “Goldfish case”, Chinese police stopped an attempted shipment of heroin to the US hidden inside the bodies of dead ornamental goldfish. One of the suspects was sent to the US as a witness and he was allowed to apply for political asylum, which was granted in 1990. Since then, the US side has linked Chinese extradition requests to legal and political differences. This may be shifting: in April 2026, US authorities extradited a Chinese drug fugitive back to China for the first time in recent years. Ahead of Trump’s Beijing trip in May, both sides arrested three Americans and two Chinese nationals in a joint smuggling spanning the two countries. Such developments signal that cooperation is moving from high-level diplomacy to agency-level law enforcement.

In drug control, China and the US have demonstrated that functional cooperation is viable even without progress on high-level political matters.

Joint Sino-US cooperation is also yielding some dividends in Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle. Spanning parts of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, the area has long been a notorious hub of illicit drug production, transit and consumption. China-US cooperation in curbing drug trafficking and eradicating opium poppy cultivation in the area began in the mid-1980s, with notable achievements thereafter. In the 2000s, internationally assisted source-control programmes enabled legitimate staple food and cash crops to replace opium poppy cultivation. This reduced the supply of the controlled substance and attracted foreign direct investment into the region’s agricultural sectors.

The emergence of synthetic drugs, however, presents new challenges. A May 2025 report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) found that synthetic drug manufacture and trafficking from the Golden Triangle “have grown exponentially”, with increasingly agile and tech-savvy networks. China’s 2025 Drug Situation Report identifies the Gulf of Thailand as “a key maritime distribution hub for drugs originating from the Golden Triangle and Southeast Asia”. In April 2026, a joint Chinese-Thai-Vietnamese operation destroyed three illegal production labs in the three countries and arrested over 40 individuals. The operation targeted etomidate — a sedative not yet listed under international drug conventions — along with other precursor chemicals.

The depoliticisation of Sino-US law enforcement and the beefing up of bilateral activities against drug trafficking have implications for Southeast Asia. First, China and the US can share real-time intelligence with their counterparts in Southeast Asia on incidents involving precursors and equipment used in illicit drug manufacture. This can be done through established multinational platforms, including the UNODC and the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB). These platforms also provide venues for both powers to share broader expertise in drug control with the region.

Second, joint operations targeting drug trafficking have a resultant impact on other criminal activities. Cybercrimes committed by illicit elements based in Southeast Asia affect Americans, as a recent US crackdown on regional cyberscam operations illustrated. In May 2026, China, the United Arab Emirates and the US jointly cracked down on cross-border scam operations. If the authorities of ASEAN, China and the US launch joint operations against the scam centres, they will have a higher impact on cross-national criminal networks of illicit drug supply chains.

Third, both China and the US have deep expertise in dealing with the misuse and abuse of drugs in their respective national jurisdictions. Their knowledge and experience sharing with ASEAN countries can help to enhance the harmonisation of domestic regulations on known and potentially harmful substances. This is significant since illicit drug operators often take advantage of differences in domestic regulations to evade international crackdowns.

In drug control, China and the US have demonstrated that functional cooperation is viable even without progress on high-level political matters. Extending that cooperation to ASEAN partners – across fields including pharmaceutical regulation, medicinal sciences, and law enforcement – would amplify their combined impact, while setting an example and template for the rest of the world. The ultimate winner is progress in public health protection for their citizens and beyond.

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