China said on Monday it has lodged stern representations to the United States, following U.S. President Joe Biden’s listing of it among so-called “major drug transit or major illicit drug producing countries.”
The U.S. identifying China on the list is “groundless and out of sheer smear,” said Mao Ning, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, at a regular press briefing in Beijing.
“The Chinese side is resolutely opposed to this and has lodged stern representations to the U.S. side,” said Mao.
She added the Chinese government has always been serious about fighting drugs and detailed China’s efforts on global drug governance.
To date, China has scheduled 456 anesthetic and psychotropic drugs and two entire classes of substances, becoming one of the countries that have scheduled the biggest number of substances and exercises the strictest control on drugs, according to the spokesperson.
China has listed 38 types of controlled precursor chemicals, 14 more than those regulated by the United Nations, said Mao.
China’s narcotics control authorities have put in place “a comprehensive and dynamic supervision mechanism” for all stages of precursor chemical management, she added.
“China has the strictest drug control policy in the world and enforces it in the fullest way,” said Mao. “Our efforts are widely recognized by the international community.”
By contrast, the United States, with just five percent of the world’s population, consumes 80 percent of the opioid produced in the world, which makes the U.S. “a black hole and source of problem for global drug control,” said Mao.
Describing the U.S. as “the single largest major drug demand country,” she said the U.S. is in no position to wag its finger at China’s counter-narcotics efforts.
The incompetence and ineffective control is the true cause of the pervasive drug problem in the U.S., and the fundamental solution is to reduce its domestic demand, said Mao.
“We urge the U.S. to stop blaming and smearing China and do things in ways that are conducive to cooperation with China, not otherwise.”, she added.
(Cover: File of Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning. /Chinese Foreign Ministry)
