China on Friday insisted it is up to the US to create necessary conditions for anti-drugs cooperation, following complaints from Washington that Beijing has ignored its calls for a crackdown on precursor chemicals for the highly addictive painkiller fentanyl.
China takes an active part in international anti-narcotic cooperation and firmly opposes smears and unilateral sanctions on other countries under the pretext of the fight against drugs, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a daily briefing.
China was also deeply angered by a decision late last month by the U.S. Department to file criminal charges against four Chinese companies and eight individuals for allegedly trafficking the chemicals used to make fentanyl in the United States and Mexico.
The indictments represented the first prosecutions to charge China-based chemical companies and Chinese nationals with illegally selling the chemicals used to make the drug, which has been blamed for a deadly overdose crisis.
The Chinese Embassy condemned the charges, accusing the U.S. government of seeking to shift the blame for its domestic drug problem.
China has also complained over sanctions leveled against the Ministry of Public Securitys Institution of Forensic Science over a lack of action on combating the production and sale of fentanyl precursor chemicals, and says U.S. claims of a pipeline of such substances from China to Mexico and into the US is a fallacy.