Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (C) announces the launch of the U.S.-China Counternarcotics Working Group next to U.S. Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Homeland Security Advisor Jen Daskal (center L) at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on January 30, 2024.
Ng Han Guan | Afp | Getty Images
BEIJING — The U.S. and China had a “productive” first day of talks in Beijing about the fentanyl crisis, Jennifer Daskal, a deputy homeland security advisor, told NBC News’ Janis Mackey Frayer in an exclusive interview Tuesday.
“We’re looking for results and we had a productive step forward,” Daskal said, while acknowledging the risk that China could use its sway over the fentanyl supply chain as a bargaining chip.
Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is an addictive drug that’s led to tens of thousands of overdose deaths each year in the U.S.
Reducing illicit supplies of the drug, precursors of which are mostly produced in China and Mexico, has become an area in which Washington and Beijing have agreed to cooperate.
It comes amid an otherwise fraught bilateral relationship.
U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed at their meeting in San Francisco in November to establish a working group on drug control.
In an official readout of Tuesday’s meeting, Wang Xiaohong, director of China’s National Narcotics Control Commission, said he hoped both sides would “inject more positive energy” into the stable development of U.S.-China relations.
Wang is also the Minister of Public Security.
The Biden administration in November removed the Ministry of Public Security’s Institute of Forensic Science of China from a blacklist known as the entity list, in effect lifting sanctions on its narcotics lab.
That removal allows China’s National Narcotics Lab to repair or buy new equipment — mostly made in the U.S. — and reduce delays in research, lab director Hua Zhendong told NBC News’ Mackey Frayer.
Greater bilateral cooperation allows the two…
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