China has backed itself into a diplomatic corner. In order to achieve its ambitious goals, Beijing must balance its reputation, relations with potential investees in the Global South, and relations with the United States. In terms of the U.S., Beijing wants to project power, mainly by winning the trade war through strategic leveraging of counternarcotics policy. In terms of developing countries, China wants to appear as a strong alternative backer when compared to Western states. And in general, China wants to be the globe’s “tough drug cop,” a stable ally to the Global South, and, most of all, the dominant superpower.
These goals were difficult but feasible, at least until the synthetic opioid crisis went truly global. West African states have been burdened by a drug called “kush” since the early 2020s, and recent testing revealed it as synthetic opioid—one that Chinese companies produce. To be a viable alternative to Western investors like the World Bank or International Monetary fund, China must make sure it can guarantee safety—that is, it can guarantee it won’t be sending opioids along its trade lines. However, China leverages counternarcotics policy in its ongoing trade war with the United States, and any concession in that domain would be a concession in the broader battle. If China cracks down on counternarcotics enforcement, it would be ceding to the demands of the U.S., and therein losing relative power. But without intense enforcement, potential investees and allies will see trade with China as increasingly risky, once again, losing relative power.
On April 2nd, President Trump announced universal reciprocal tariffs on all imports. The new tariffs are an escalation of ongoing trade wars between the United States and China. The tariffs ostensibly aimed at reversing the United States’ trade deficit and closing U.S. borders to fentanyl smuggling.
Trump’s first trade war with China began in 2018 and was resolved in 2020 with the U.S.-China “Phase One” agreement. Although tensions lessened and rates lowered, relations remained sour; neither the deficit was resolved nor did China follow through on purchasing commitments. By 2022, U.S.-China relations reached a new low as President Joe Biden expanded on Trump-era tariffs, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a public visit to Taiwan.
This fraught economic relationship is complicated and intensified by contentious counternarcotics cooperation. Trump has often pointed to the opioid crisis as a key motivator for his protectionist stances. The recent deluge of tariffs began with a 10% tax on Chinese imports, supposedly in order to stop “poisonous fentanyl and other drugs” entering the United States. Beijing’s willingness to cooperate on counternarcotics is increasingly portrayed as a concession to the U.S., rather than a potential route to lowering tensions.
Trumpian rhetoric would cast China as a drug-slinging supervillain who engineered the opioid epidemic in order to destroy democracy. Beijing has denied the charges, placing blame for the fentanyl crisis solely on American failures. The truth is somewhere in between.
To clarify, China-linked criminal groups—groups located in China, but not necessarily Chinese identifying—are the primary source of synthetic opioid precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of fentanyl sold in the United States. Since the Taliban ceased poppy production and “natural” opioid supply decreased, the synthetic opioid market has boomed. China-linked criminal syndicates sell precursor chemicals to Mexican cartels, who produce fentanyl and then smuggle it to distributors in the United States. China’s enormous pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturing sector is well regulated, but counternarcotics enforcement can be selective.
Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, describes Chinese counternarcotics action as subordinate to their political and economic goals. Beijing views counternarcotics as one of many available strategic tools aimed at gaining relative power—not, as Trump would have it, a weapon against American civilians. Thus, as economic relations between the U.S. and China worsened, Beijing no longer had an incentive to cooperate on nor enforce counternarcotics policy. This mindset is fundamentally different from the historic American position of decoupling counternarcotics from other political aspirations, but it shouldn’t be a surprising one. Washington cannot expect favors from Beijing while simultaneously trying to destroy China’s economy. Thus, if Beijing intensifies enforcement or opens counternarcotics discourse with Washington, it will be seen as intrinsically tied to the trade war.
It should be noted, however, that there has been previous counternarcotics cooperation between the US and China. In 2019, as part of the Phase One agreement, China tightened regulations on the entire class of fentanyl drugs. Most of the time, when a drug is regulated, the government chooses a specific kind or chemical formula to restrict. In regulating the entire class, China showed a willingness to cooperate that could have been leveraged into a stronger relationship overall if Biden or Trump had removed the tariffs. Instead, the tariffs remained and China struggled to recover economically after COVID-19.
But Beijing’s cooperation in 2019 was not solely because of economic pain, but instead was largely due to reputational costs. Beijing and President Xi Jinping closely guard China’s reputation as the world’s “drug cop,” likely in reaction to the 19th century Opium Wars. In fact, China’s economy is actually slower now than it had been during the first trade war because of their whiplash Zero-COVID policy implementation and removal, but there has been little sign of narcotics diplomacy. If the U.S. wants counternarcotics cooperation, Trump’s disordered and nationalistic tariff plan must be leveraged alongside diplomacy and reputational attacks. For China, however, linking reputation to counternarcotics means a failure in that arena—like being unable to control the export of synthetic opioid precursor chemicals—means a loss of overall influence.
China is open about its ambitions towards global dominance. Beijing makes no attempt to hide its efforts to expand Chinese political and cultural influence. Through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Beijing has invested in developing countries in Africa, Latin America, Oceania, Asia, and Europe. The globe-spanning reach of BRI necessitates that Beijing present itself as a viable and safe alternative to Western development models. To do this, China has had to walk a fine line between its projected image of “fellow member of the Global South” and its reality as an authoritarian superpower. It has to protect its reputation.
This line is not necessarily difficult to walk. As the U.S. alienates its allies and cries “America first!”, China is fiercely protective of its reputation and its network. Xi emphasizes China’s commitment to state sovereignty and non-interference, and BRI follows suit. Unlike Western development initiatives like Biden’s Build Back Better World, BRI has no normative restrictions on nondemocratic states, only the expectation that a debt is eventually repaid. And unlike neoliberal institutions like the World Bank or International Monetary Fund which require market restructuring and bottom-up development, BRI invests directly in infrastructure.
The non-judgemental, angel-investor vision of China is one that seems like a strong option to developing states. But if trade with China could result in an opioid epidemic, potential partners might be wary.
In early April of 2024, President Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone declared a national emergency on substance abuse of the drug called “kush.” President Joseph Boakai of neighboring Liberia did the same, calling the drug an “existential threat.” Rumors about the drug have been swirling for years—some saying the drug was made of human bones and rat poison—and the human cost has been devastating. As of 2025, kush has made its way into Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, The Gambia, Ghana, Senegal, and Côte d’Ivoire.
It was only at the end of February 2025 that chemical testing was finally performed on the drug. The report from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime revealed that the primary psychoactive chemicals in the drug are nitazenes, a kind of synthetic opioid, much stronger than fentanyl and roughly 100 times more potent than heroin. The chemicals are smuggled into West Africa from China, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Further research by the Clingendael Institute found that only China both produces and exports the chemicals in nitazenes, whereas the Netherlands and the UK export a version of kush made from synthetic cannabinoids.
Prior to kush, synthetic opioids were seen as a primarily North American problem, although fentanyl had made its way into Europe (mainly in Estonia). But as of late 2024, nitazenes were found in small quantities in Europe, too. Felbab-Brown attributes this shipment to suppliers from China and India.
Developing states do not have the resources nor the desire to deal with an opioid epidemic, especially not an epidemic that was accidentally imported from China. Sierra Leone’s clinics and rehabilitation programs are deeply underfunded, despite a national emergency having been declared over a year ago. In Guinea, a single private rehab center has to deal with what the unstable, dysfunctional government will not. Guinea-Bissau is known as the world’s first “narco-state,” although it had the reputation prior to kush. None of these states have received counternarcotics aid from China.
China needs to preserve its reputation as a low-consequence investor. Opioid epidemics are not low consequence. Nor, for that matter, are they a prime example of noninterference and a respect for state sovereignty.
China has found its way into a self-made trap. Beijing wants to protect its reputation as a safe bet for developing states, but being seen as the global drug supplier might put a damper on that. Simultaneously, any counternarcotics enforcement would be viewed as a concession to the United States. Counternarcotics cooperation with just West Africa would be tantamount to admitting fault in the global synthetic opioid epidemic, a reputational blow Xi might not want to withstand.
Beijing does have experience dealing with exported crime. Taskforce Blaze, a collaboration between China and Australia, was successful in fighting the Australian methamphetamine crisis. In the Mekong Region, China took on a larger security role to fight cross-border crime syndicates. But cooperation with Australia ended as their relationship deteriorated, and Beijing was accused of violating its principles of noninterference regarding water governance and security by states in the Mekong. Even with optimal conditions for cooperation and enforcement, China struggled to balance state sovereignty with effective action.
As the trade war simmers on and the West African synthetic opioid crisis rages, China must make a hard choice. Beijing softens the blows of U.S. tariffs through its global trade network—a network reliant on a good reputation. Xi can either accept the hit to his ego and put in the counternarcotics work, thereby making a public concession to Trump, or he can hope developing states continue to prefer the “Chinese Dream” to “America First.”
Featured Image Source: Global Times