US CHINA TO FIGHT DRUG TRADE TOGETHER

BEIJING - Hoping to slow the flow of tons of high-grade heroin through
China and into the United States, U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey and
high-ranking Chinese law enforcement officials agreed Monday to share
evidence and intelligence on crime and drugs.

The crime-fighting accord, the first drug-related legal-assistance
agreement between the United States and China, is a signal of warming
relations. It was reached on the first stop of an eight-day Asia tour by
McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy. McCaffrey also will visit the southern Chinese city of Kunming and
Hong Kong, Vietnam and Thailand.

The three Asian countries share soaring rates of heroin and methamphetamine
trafficking and addiction.

"This is an important moment," McCaffrey said at a news briefing Monday. He
said the agreement would "open a door leading to far wider cooperation
against drugs.'

The United States is particularly interested in efforts to plug a major
heroin pipeline that runs from Myanmar through southern China and crosses
the Pacific Ocean into Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Most of the estimated 15 metric tons of heroin consumed each year by
America's nearly 1 million addicts comes from Colombia and Mexico. But in
recent years more has come from Myanmar (formerly Burma), whose military
dictatorship has been implicated in the trafficking.

The Chinese government is tough on drug dealers. If caught, they often get
a quick trial and a bullet behind the ear. But the looser controls that
have accompanied economic reform over the past 20 years also have led to
more drug trafficking and drug abuse.