Since the turn of the millennium, the United States has been ravaged by an opioid epidemic that has killed nearly one million Americans. At first, most of these victims died after overdosing on heroin or various prescription painkillers. But over the last five years, the deaths have been largely driven by a single, synthetic drug: fentanyl. Since finding its way into the illicit drug market, fentanyl has steadily crowded out other opioids, to the point where it is now responsible for most opioid poisonings. In 2023, for example, roughly 81,000 Americans died from opioids. Fentanyl caused nearly 75,000 of those deaths.
It is hard to overstate how deadly fentanyl is. The drug is more than 30 times as powerful as heroin, and so its spread has helped drive the number of opioid deaths to record highs. The human cost of the spike is visible to anyone who knows someone that overdosed, and to plenty who don’t. It was very apparent to me at a recent congressional hearing on this epidemic, where a packed auditorium of grieving families brought pictures of loved ones who succumbed to fentanyl poisoning.
In assigning blame for the fentanyl epidemic, experts and ordinary Americans alike point to a variety of factors, such as economic hardship, poor medical care, and the predatory behavior of opioid distributors—including infamous pill mills that overprescribe addictive substances. But increasingly, they are also blaming a country on the other side of the world: China. They do so for good reason. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, China produces the vast majority of the chemicals needed to make fentanyl. Just a few years ago, it was estimated that fentanyl sourced from China accounted for 97 percent of illicit seizures. According to a bipartisan investigation by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, of which I am the leading Democratic member, the CCP even subsidizes the production of illicit ingredients and allows the deadly substances to be openly sold on otherwise closely surveilled e-commerce platforms.
It isn’t surprising that the CCP has let this trade fester. For Beijing, the American fentanyl epidemic is an ocean away. There is little incentive to care about stopping a U.S. crisis. China’s legitimate chemical industry, meanwhile, benefits from light-touch regulation.
But if the CCP believes it can get away with ignoring the fentanyl trade, it has misread the room. Americans are more furious than ever about the epidemic, and they are beginning to demand their representatives take action against China to save the lives of their fellow citizens. Whatever marginal benefits China’s economy may derive from lax chemical regulations, they are far outweighed by the very real possibility that American anger regarding the CCP’s role in the epidemic will push Washington to adopt a harder line toward Beijing.
That means Beijing must get serious about cracking down on fentanyl production. The CCP must, among other things, prosecute more people for exporting the drug’s precursors. It must better police the online platforms on which these chemicals are openly peddled. It needs to go after the money-laundering schemes that allow the trade to flourish, including by cooperating with U.S. law enforcement officials. It also needs to tell its own local officials to prevent the export of these deadly substances. And the CCP must act fast. Otherwise, American anger toward China might push Beijing and Washington into a conflict that nobody desires.
### **ACTION IS NOT AUTOMATIC**
China is essential to the fentanyl industry. It is effectively the sole source for the ingredients Mexican drug cartels use to make synthetic opioids, which the cartels then smuggle into the United States. This fact means the CCP could irreparably impair the cartels’ ability to produce fentanyl and thus largely prevent the drug’s distribution. Doing so would not end the U.S. opioid epidemic. But it would almost certainly curtail it.
Yet history shows that the CCP generally acts only when forced to do so. For years, U.S. officials—myself included—called for China to schedule (meaning to classify) certain critical precursor chemicals as controlled substances. Yet these pleas were too often ignored. Beijing made some progress only after consequence-backed diplomacy. For instance, in November 2023, the United States resumed bilateral counternarcotics cooperation and established a working group to facilitate these initiatives. But it also added China to the list of the primary, illicit-drug-producing countries. Being on this so-called “Majors List” restricts various forms of U.S. assistance, but such a formal designation also foreshadows even greater costs to come. Faced with real pressure and looming consequences, the CCP began to relent, scheduling many substances and taking other positive steps.
To understand why China will not act willingly—but will respond to pressure—one needs to understand what motivates Beijing. The CCP is a ruling party that subjects its own citizens to unthinkable abuses, so it is not going to prioritize preventing tragedy in the United States. But it will prioritize protecting its interests. Beijing does not like its companies facing sanctions and its government facing cascading, multilateral condemnation. And so when all branches of the U.S. government speak up, including through diplomacy, and demonstrate willingness to impose tangible consequences for facilitating the fentanyl epidemic, the CCP is more likely to listen and act.
Congress has an important role to play here. Earlier this year, we enacted fentanyl sanctions legislation that will help deter bad actors in China. Building off its investigatory findings, my Select Committee also established a bipartisan Fentanyl Policy Working Group, led by Representatives Jake Auchincloss and Dan Newhouse, with support from past committee chair Mike Gallagher and current committee chair John Moolenaar. Its purpose is to show Beijing that Washington’s concerns are acute and that it is ready to act, including by imposing significant economic consequences on bad actors that depend on the U.S. financial system. Even in a time of significant polarization, the United States must be crystal clear with China that Americans are united in stopping this epidemic. If the CCP fails to recognize this reality, it will not end well for either country.
### **WHAT WORKS**
If China acts to stop the flow of fentanyl, it should be able to succeed. China’s counternarcotics enforcement, after all, is effective domestically. While the United States reported tens of thousands of fentanyl-poisoning deaths last year, China reported zero. That figure is almost certainly an underestimate, but it nonetheless reflects the fact that China does not tolerate fentanyl distribution within its borders. If a Chinese group supplies fentanyl at home, its members face severe sanctions—including death—in a criminal justice system that frequently abrogates international norms and values.
But even amid this harshness, exporters of fentanyl ingredients frequently suffer no consequence, even when U.S. law enforcement hands their names to Beijing on a platter. When Washington indicts a Chinese exporter, the CCP often refuses to extradite the person. In one case, China even asked U.S. officials to not file charges against a known exporter. Chinese officials claim they lack the legal framework needed to go after these exporters, but the country’s domestic enforcement suggests otherwise. Even if China does need to update its code, an authoritarian state should have no problem making those adjustments, including by closing the substantial loopholes related to pill presses (the industrial tools used for fentanyl manufacturing, which remain severely underregulated). It should be able to ensure every single U.S. law enforcement extradition request and request related to counternarcotics is never ignored and swiftly met.
Beijing must also vigorously pursue enforcement in noncriminal contexts. This means stopping Chinese e-commerce platforms from openly permitting the sale of fentanyl precursors and analogs. Today, people can log on to multiple Chinese platforms, type in the name of these chemicals, and find sellers who openly tout their ability to bypass U.S. customs enforcement. When the Select Committee tested just one of these sites earlier this year, it found over 5,000 offers for narcotics precursors, including in bulk. Even after Chinese authorities were on notice of these findings, far too many posts remained online.
Beijing should go after more than producers and markets. It must also go after the flow of funds between sellers and their drug cartel customers. That means better monitoring of transactions and working to prevent suspicious ones. To effectuate such enforcement, China must establish meaningful “know-your-customer” requirements across its chemical production and shipping industries, so that criminal sales can be easily traced. In addition, Beijing must ban all the remaining substances U.S. authorities have identified as opioid precursors but that nonetheless remain legal—as well as substances used to produce other dangerous drugs, such as xylazine (or “tranq”). Finally, Chinese law enforcement officials have to establish strong information-sharing mechanisms with U.S. law enforcement. Chinese officials can help U.S. officials identify not just importers, but also money-laundering schemes, given that some of those schemes extend across borders.
### **PLAYING WITH FIRE**
When it comes to combating crime, these steps—enforcing criminal laws, acting against rogue e-commerce platforms, scheduling deadly substances, and sharing information—are fairly standard. As a result, they should be easy to enact. But given the gravity of the fentanyl crisis and China’s role in it, these steps may not be sufficient. To show that it is serious and fully crush illegal exports, Beijing will have to go further.
To begin, the CCP should instill accountability within its own ranks by imposing consequences on those who have turned a blind eye to fentanyl production. It should review how many opioid ingredients were exported from a given official’s region when deciding whether that person is promoted or demoted. It could even expel the worst offenders from the CCP altogether. Similarly, Beijing should establish a zero-tolerance policy toward those who do not prioritize stopping the export of these deadly substances. Ignorance is not an excuse.
China must also address each of the disturbing findings of the Select Committee’s bipartisan investigation. For example, it is unacceptable that China’s value-added tax system offers rebates for illicit chemical producers. Beijing must terminate government ownership of entities that support the industry—and then take action against them.
> China is part of the problem and part of the solution.
Chinese officials may be reluctant to take such measures against what is, to them, a foreign issue. Some analysts have even speculated that certain CCP officials may stall until the party can use the fentanyl crisis as leverage in unrelated international disputes. But with the American people’s eyes squarely on them, their current approach is increasingly untenable. If they fail to stop the flow of chemicals and thus keep fueling American pain, they will propel the U.S. government to employ even stronger measures.
The CCP now knows beyond any doubt the implications of what is occurring within China’s borders. Government officials know that failing to stem the flow of synthetic opioids means that death tolls in the United States will remain unacceptably high. And they know that intensifying cooperation in the battle against illicit narcotics is imperative to save these lives. If China fails to embrace a genuine whole-of-government effort to end the epidemic—from closing all regulatory loopholes to prioritizing enforcement—the status quo will become beyond inexcusable. The CCP should not play with fire.
But Americans must also be honest with themselves about China’s role. To put it bluntly, the CCP is both part of the problem and, by necessity, part of the solution. U.S. officials must hold bad actors in China accountable for the epidemic but also insist on progress and encourage the CCP to work with Washington. Doing so is the only way to protect countless Americans—and people around the world—from the scourge of fentanyl.