U.S., CHINA REACH ANTI-DRUG PACT

Signals A Warming Of Relations

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 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, Hong
Kong, Vietnam and Thailand.

At a briefing Monday, McCaffrey said the agreement would ``open a door
leading to far wider cooperation against drugs.''

The United States is particularly interested in efforts to plug the
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 one 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.

Myanmar and Afghanistan now produce 90 percent of the world's heroin,
according to U.S. estimates. Largely because of drought, Myanmar's
opium production declined last year to less than half its record 1996
level, but still was about 1,000 metric tons, U.S. officials said.

This heroin follows many routes to the U.S. market. Some of it passes
through Laos and Vietnam; some makes its way down through Thailand to
Bangkok. But the primary route now, U.S. officials say, is across
southern China.

Heroin passing along that route once was shipped to the United States
through Hong Kong and Taiwan. But a recent report by McCaffrey's
office said apparent declines in heroin shipments from Hong Kong and
Taiwan may be the result of an increase in shipments directly from
southern China.

Yang Fengrui, director general of the Narcotics Control Bureau of
China's Ministry of Public Security, said the agreement with the
United States marked a new stage of cooperation, which was necessary
because ``international drug problems need international
cooperation.''

In a show of China-U.S. solidarity, Yang stood beside McCaffrey at the
news briefing. The agreement and their joint appearance reflected the
cautious warming of relations after the U.S. House of Representatives
last month approved permanent normal trade status for China.

For more than a year before that vote, relations had been severely
strained by the accidental NATO bombing of China's embassy in
Belgrade, Yugoslavia, U.S. allegations that China stole its nuclear
secrets, China's threats against Taiwan and its continuing crackdown
on political and religious dissidents.

``What we're looking for is practical cooperation,'' McCaffrey said.
``Basically, there's been nothing. We're starting from ground zero.''