Revenge for the Opium War?

A resolution of the U.S.-China discord should begin with cooperating to end the fentanyl crisis.

YOU SANG-CHULThe author is the head of the China Institute of the JoongAng Ilbo. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the only four-term president in U.S. history, was interested in China during his lifetime. He often talked about his grandfather, Warren Delano Jr., doing business in China. What business did he do?

According to Wang Yuanchong, a history professor at the University of Delaware, FDR’s maternal grandfather was involved in the opium business. At the end of the 18th century, the British East India Company began selling opium to make up for its trade deficit with China, and American merchants, including Delano Jr., willingly joined.

Nations and people didn’t matter when it came to making money illegally. Most of the American companies operating in Guangzhou, China, were engaged in the opium trade. With the money they earned, they invested in philanthropy, education, transportation and medicine to make America stronger.

On the other hand, China suffered from the outflow of silver coins, trade deficit, poverty, and exhaustion of its people, and collapsed in the end. Chinese people sighed, “With a pipe in hand, the heavenly dream is blown away.” But history repeats itself.

Earlier this month, Mexican President López Obrador said that Chinese cargo containing fentanyl substances — called “zombie drugs” — had arrived at a Mexican port. He said it would be proof that fentanyl was brought from China to Mexico.

He also said that he planned to send a polite letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping to solve the problem. His remarks suggest that the main supplier of fentanyl — which is 50 times more addictive than heroin and 100 times more than morphine — is China, not Mexico.

Fentanyl is currently the deadliest drug the U.S. is dealing with. In 2021, 107,375 people died from drug overdoses, and 67 percent of the deaths were related to fentanyl. It is the No. 1 cause of death for adults aged 18-49, more than the number of deaths from traffic accidents and gun accidents combined.

Fentanyl, nicknamed “China White” or “China Girl,” is known to be made in China and smuggled directly to the U.S. or distributed to the U.S. through Mexico.

The U.S. and China have been cracking down on China’s fentanyl raw material producers since 2018, but cooperation is currently fizzling out due to worsening trade conflicts. Some in the U.S. complain, “China may be intentionally distributing fentanyl in the U.S.” or “China may be venting its grudge from the Opium War on the U.S.”

On the other hand, China protests, “Why blame China when the misuse of fentanyl in America is the problem?” This is why the fentanyl crisis is called the 21st-century opium war.

Drugs are the common enemy of humanity. A resolution of the U.S.-China discord should begin with cooperating to end the fentanyl crisis.