Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, said that China is directly linked to fentanyl production in Mexico. She discussed China’s role in the fentanyl crisis during the hearing “Strengthening International Cooperation to Stop the Flow of Fentanyl into the United States."
"Until 2019, China was the principal source of finished fentanyl for the U.S. illegal market," said Vanda Felbab-Brown. "Since China scheduled the entire class of fentanyl-type drugs in May 2019, it is the principal source of precursor chemicals for fentanyl. And since many precursors are dual use, they have not been placed on control schedules. Chinese brokers knowingly sell these chemicals to Mexican criminal groups for the production of fentanyl."
During the hearing before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Felbab-Brown discussed the important role that China plays in supplying Mexico with fentanyl precursors. “From the precursors,” she said, “the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) synthesize fentanyl in Mexico and then smuggle it to the United States.” Because of this, Felbab-Brown said that alongside Mexico, China is a “key actor whose collaboration is necessary for controlling supply.”
Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown senior fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution
| brookings.edu
Felbab-Brown said in her testimony that China’s main focus is their relationship with the U.S., but that the Chinese government hardly ever places counternarcotics efforts above its strategic analysis. She said that China uses anti-drug cooperation as a bargaining tool to achieve other objectives. “Beijing rarely acts against the top echelons of large and powerful Chinese criminal syndicates that provide the Chinese government with various services unless they specifically contradict a narrow set of interests of the Chinese government,” Felbab-Brown said.
China has taken several positive steps toward cooperation with the U.S., but also has said that they will not deliver on certain elements, Felbab-Brown said. For example, China maintains its stance that it cannot prosecute substances that aren't listed on schedules and is reluctant to enforce Know Your Customer (KYC) laws, both of which continue to allow the Mexican cartels to accumulate fentanyl precursors.
Vanda Felbab-Brown, according to the Brookings Institute website, serves as a senior fellow at the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology within the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. She also directs the Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors. She earned her doctorate in political science from MIT.
