Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues

The drug trade’s regrowth means that Myanmar and Laos are among the State Department’s most recent annual listing of major narcotics producers or traffickers. Reverberations are felt in China, home to an $82 billion drug trade and at least 14 million drug addicts, as well as in the United States, where the domestic drug trade is worth at least $100 billion and heroin, in particular, has led to large areas of social blight. Cooperation to stem the production and flow of narcotics in the Golden Triangle would be to the benefit of all, and, for a number of reasons, would likely be welcomed by Chinese authorities.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) successful collaborative interdiction efforts in Latin America provide a positive blueprint: Operation Snowcap, lasting from 1987 to 1994, saw the DEA work with authorities from nine countries across the region and resulted in the seizure of more than 50 tons of cocaine, the arrest of 7,000 suspected traffickers, the destruction of 300 processing facilities, and most importantly the demise of the Medellin and Cali cartels. Existing international cooperation aimed at countering the Mekong drug trade has endured considerable turbulence, including the implication of nine Thai anti-narcotics soldiers in the murder of 13 Chinese ship crewmen. An outsider with proven expertise may be a welcome shake-up.

Secondly, there is a positive history of cooperation between U.S. and Chinese issue-specific authorities away from high-profile diplomatic engagements. Since at least 2005, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has engaged with China’s Ministry for Environmental Protection and National Development and Reform Commission. This engagement has played a part in the formulation of an expansive array of policy outcomes, from a nationwide air pollution monitoring network to strict limits on coal power. The commitment of Chinese authorities to addressing the drug problem creates an opportunity for renewed cooperation: in 2015, the Ministry of Public Security oversaw 60,500 drug-related arrests, seized 11 metric tons of narcotics, and sent 55,000 drug users to government-run rehabilitation centers. Cooperating with the DEA and other national drug authorities would allow China to address the problem at its source.

Such operations could take a variety of forms: at the most basic level, the DEA could participate in knowledge-sharing workshops with the respective authorities of China, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar. If successful, parties involved could deepen cooperation by sharing intelligence, conducting joint exercises, and even carrying out interdiction patrols together. As noted above, the DEA’s success in Latin America in combination with existing cooperation between U.S. and Chinese government agencies augurs well for counter-narcotics collaboration. Such collaboration would deliver benefits not only to the U.S.-China relationship, but also to the wider Mekong region.

If interdiction efforts in the Golden Triangle are successful, there will be a need for development assistance in communities that currently rely on opium cultivation. This need may be filled in concert by the World Bank, which focuses on poverty alleviation, and the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which concentrates on transport connectivity.

The benefits of counter-narcotics cooperation go beyond providing a platform for wider U.S. China collaboration. Reductions in drug trafficking would stabilize the Mekong security environment, promoting confidence in the river as a trade corridor and tourism destination, and result in trickle-down increases in prosperity in local communities. Reduced drug production should lead to a decline in drug consumption. This, in addition to more rehabilitation facilities, would provide a foundation for enhanced public health in the region. All these improvements start with a cooperative approach to counter-narcotics operations in the Golden Triangle.

But the benefits of U.S.-China counter-narcotics cooperation are not limited to the Golden Triangle. Cooperation between the United States, China, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar could establish a basis for the United States and China to work with the wider ASEAN community to tackle regional issues, aiming initially at joint fisheries patrols before tackling the most challenging issues, such as resource sharing and territorial delineation in the South China Sea. By working together to address the relatively low-hanging fruit of drug production and trafficking in the Golden Triangle, the United States and China can build toward a relationship based on cooperation capable not only of alleviating social blight in the region, but also establish the mutual trust and confidence needed to pave the way for a more stable future of U.S.-China questions, even extending to the South China Sea issue. 

Johan van de Ven is a candidate for the Masters of Arts in Law and Diplomacy at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. His study focuses on international political economy, EU-China relations, and public international law.