Enlisting Beijing to help stop fentanyl exports won’t be easy - The Globe and Mail
▻http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/enlisting-beijing-to-help-stop-fentanyl-exports-wont-be-easy/article33207872
For students of Chinese history, there’s irony in Canada’s demand on moral grounds that China suppress the export of a synthetic opioid.
(…) This history could explain the reported lack of enthusiasm by Chinese police to respond vigorously to Canada’s request that Beijing close down fentanyl production and export. China doesn’t have a significant fentanyl problem domestically. It deals with the problem by executing drug smugglers and dealers and by imprisoning illegal-drug users for a program of forced rehabilitation that they or their families pay for. In a police state that keeps close tabs on all citizens, this policy is relatively effective (although amphetamine abuse is increasing in Chinese cities, and heroin injection in the mountainous Golden Triangle border regions has led to something of a rural crisis of largely untreated HIV/AIDS cases).
Beijing is unlikely to aggressively suppress this lucrative export for the sake of international public interest alone. Undoubtedly China’s fentanyl manufacturers are already issuing the necessary bribes to keep their operations free from government harassment. Moreover, Chinese culture suggests police there are only likely to actively suppress fentanyl exports if Ottawa offers an incentive to do so. (...)
But another condition of this pact could be more co-operation with Chinese authorities tracking down Chinese nationals in Canada who Beijing wants to see returned to China.
#Chine #canada #drogue #santé_publique #fentanyl #carfentanil #guerres_de_l'opium