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The new laws should be interpreted as a victory for US President Donald Trump, who took a firm stance against fentanyl and praised China in December 2018, when President Xi Jinping agreed for the first time time to do it.
"This could change the game for what is considered the most dangerous, addictive and deadly substance," Trump told Twitter at the time..
Extremely powerful synthetic drug, fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine and 30 to 50 times more potent than heroin.
According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, fentanyl has been used in the United States for one in four overdose deaths in 2018, killing just over 18,000 people in one year and outnumbering heroin and HIV. Oxycodone as the country's most deadly drug.
On Monday, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, the National Health Commission and the National Administration of Medical Products gathered to make this announcement at a press conference in Beijing.
Liu Yuejin, deputy head of China's National Drug Control Commission, described the initiative as a "major breakthrough" in the country's contribution to the global drug war.
The chief anti-narcotics official said the new regulation would prevent pharmaceutical companies from evading the law by simply changing the chemical structure of their products.
Liu stressed that China would apply its laws "even more thoroughly" after the latest announcement and "bring to justice the perpetrators of ruthless violations".
Crisis of opioids in the United States
China banned the manufacture and sale of four types of fentanyl in March 2017 and then expanded the list to 25 types, but the Trump administration had called for a broader ban to slow the flow of deadly drug to United States.
In August 2018, Trump accused China of being at the root of the opioid crisis in the United States, claiming that fentanyl "was pouring into the US postal system." In October, Trump enacted a law aimed at reducing the epidemic and injecting billions of dollars into treatment and prevention.
Chinese authorities have long insisted on close cooperation with their US partners to suppress the fentanyl shipment, including through the installation of thousands of security control machines.
On Monday, Liu denied Washington's accusations that China would be the main source of fentanyl in the United States, pointing to internal problems in the United States, ranging from excessive prescribing of painkillers to the powerful pharmaceutical lobby.
"I think if the US really wants to solve their fentanyl problem, they need to strengthen their internal measures," he said. "The United States has a special need to strengthen its drug education to reduce the demand for fentanyl … instead of blindly blaming other countries."
The Chinese official expressed his "regret" following recent US indictments on several Chinese nationals for their role in the distribution of fentanyl in the United States, describing these unilateral approaches as "harmful to a climate of cooperation."
Beijing first agreed to turn all variants of fentanyl into a controlled substance during trade talks between Trump and Xi in early December on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina.
The main objective of the meeting was to avoid further escalations in the trade war raging between Washington and Beijing, which resulted in billions of dollars of tariffs imposed on US and Chinese products.
The announcement of the date of entry into force of the new laws comes within the framework of the ongoing trade negotiations between the two countries, which have given rise to the hope of a potential agreement aimed at raise tariffs and ease tensions. Chinese authorities refused to link the two issues at Monday's press conference.
Trump and Xi are expected to meet again to sign a deal in the coming months.
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