President Biden will press the Chinese language chief Xi Jinping on Wednesday to crack down at the Chinese language companies which might be serving to to provide fentanyl, a potent drug that has killed masses of hundreds of American citizens.

An settlement to curb China’s illicit exports of fentanyl and, specifically, the chemical compounds that may be blended to make the drug, might be one of the vital extra vital achievements for the US out of Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi’s assembly, which is happening as leaders from Pacific countries collect for a global convention in San Francisco.

China is house to a thriving chemical business that pumps out compounds which might be made into prescription drugs, fragrances, textile dyes and fertilizers. A few of those self same compounds can be blended to create fentanyl, an opioid that may be 100 occasions as potent as morphine.

U.S. officers argue that this huge chemical business is enjoying a key position within the American fentanyl disaster through supplying the majority of fabrics utilized in unlawful drug labs, together with in Mexico, which is now the most important exporter of fentanyl to the US.

The Chinese language executive denies that its nation performs any such pivotal position and as a substitute blames the US for harboring a tradition of drug use.

“All-out advertising and marketing through pharmaceutical firms, over-prescription through medical doctors, useless executive crackdowns and the detrimental implications of marijuana legalization are some of the aggregate of things at the back of an ever-growing marketplace for narcotics,” China’s overseas ministry mentioned in a commentary final 12 months.

U.S. officers say they have got stopped extra fentanyl from entering the US prior to now two years than within the earlier 5 years blended. In step with the Facilities for Illness Keep an eye on and Prevention, fentanyl and different artificial opioids will have resulted in additional than 77,000 overdose deaths in the US between Might 2022 and April 2023. The issue with fentanyl overdoses is especially acute in San Francisco, the place Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi are assembly.

Ian Johnson, a senior fellow for China research on the Council on Overseas Members of the family, mentioned that obtaining China to comply with do something positive about fentanyl would resonate extra with reasonable American citizens than the standard “deliverables” from global conferences.

“For Biden, that will be great to have to turn to the heartland of the US that members of the family with China are greater than only a few esoteric subject, however can if truth be told deliver one thing to bizarre other folks,” Mr. Johnson mentioned in a briefing held through the council final week. Republicans have made fentanyl-related deaths a central piece in their marketing campaign in opposition to Mr. Biden and Democrats within the 2024 elections.

Nonetheless, given the difficulties with policing a bootleg business, the level to which an settlement would curb the drift of fentanyl into the US is unclear.

Roselyn Hsueh, an affiliate professor of political science at Temple College, mentioned that an settlement between Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi may just result in the Chinese language central executive offering extra oversight and making an investment extra sources into inspection and tracking. However she mentioned Beijing had run into issue prior to now clamping down on fentanyl and precursor chemical compounds.

Prior to 2019, China used to be the principle supply of fentanyl entering the US, usually in the course of the mail and different industrial couriers. As part of business talks with President Donald J. Trump, the Chinese language executive in 2019 agreed to ban the manufacturing, sale and export of all fentanyl-related medication apart from thru particular licenses.

However that led to Chinese language firms rerouting to Mexico, and India rising as a brand new manufacturing web page, Ms. Hsueh mentioned. The principle supply of U.S. fentanyl become Mexican legal organizations, which used Chinese language-made elements and Chinese language money-laundering services and products.

As of late, on-line gross sales that masks the identities of dealers and patrons additional complicate enforcement. The legislation and enforcement of fentanyl and precursor chemical compounds stays “fragmented and decentralized” amongst Chinese language native governments, business associations and companies with vested pursuits within the chemical business, Ms. Hsueh mentioned.

U.S. officers have mentioned that drawback is compounded as a result of lots of the substances used to make fentanyl are felony chemical compounds that can be utilized for reputable functions in different industries. The US has sanctioned dozens of other folks in China and Hong Kong for his or her position in fentanyl trafficking. In September, Mr. Biden added China to the U.S. checklist of the arena’s primary drug-producing international locations, a transfer that the Chinese language executive denounced as “a malicious smear.”

Final month, the U.S. customs division launched an up to date technique to fight fentanyl and artificial medication, together with in the course of the enhanced use of knowledge and counterintelligence operations to trace drug production and distribution networks, and goal suspicious places and recipients that exhibit patterns of illicit job.

“In my 30 years as a customs legitimate, the trafficking of man-made illicit medication like fentanyl is among the hardest, maximum daunting demanding situations I’ve ever noticed,” mentioned Troy Miller, the appearing commissioner for Customs and Border Coverage.

U.S. officers consider China’s dominance as a chemical manufacturer makes Beijing’s cooperation key for enforcement. Management officers, together with Trade Secretary Gina Raimondo, have raised the problem with best Chinese language officers throughout contemporary journeys to China.

When six lawmakers, together with Senator Chuck Schumer, the bulk chief, had an opportunity to speak to Mr. Xi throughout a consult with to China final month, the primary factor they introduced up used to be now not business or army coordination or local weather exchange, however the hurt that fentanyl had brought about of their house states.

“Everybody instructed tales, non-public tales about how, you already know, buddies of ours, circle of relatives, have died from fentanyl, and the way this used to be a actually essential factor, and I feel that it’s good to inform that made an influence on him, how deeply we felt about it,” mentioned Mr. Schumer, a New York Democrat.

Fentanyl precursors from China have turn into a bipartisan factor in Congress, and the six senators who spoke with Mr. Xi integrated 3 Democrats and 3 Republicans.

“China must implement rules that save you the export of fentanyl precursors to global drug markets,” mentioned Senator Invoice Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana.

Regardless of the size of the issue, there may be hope that larger coordination between the US and China may just make stronger the placement. Cooperation between the international locations on combating shipments of the precursor chemical compounds stalled a number of years in the past after the US sanctioned a Chinese language executive entity for its alleged involvement in human rights abuses in China’s westernmost area, Xinjiang.

That sanctioned entity used to be situated on the similar deal with in Beijing because the Nationwide Narcotics Laboratory of China, which performs a key position in China’s regulation enforcement effort on drug-related chemical compounds.

Chinese language officers deeply resent American sanctions on their establishments, and U.S. officers have taken the location that as a result of the danger of bewilderment some of the two institutes on the similar deal with, neither institute can paintings with the US.

China then broadened its place in August 2022 when it halted any counternarcotics coordination with the US as one among a sequence of measures taken according to a consult with to Taiwan through Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the Area. Beijing claims Taiwan, a self-ruled island democracy, as a part of its territory.

Eileen Sullivan contributed reporting from Washington.