U.S. JOINS PACT WITH CHINA IN DRUG FIGHT

Nations To Team Up In Bid To Cut Off Flow Of Heroin

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'' and may include an FBI office in Beijing.

The United States is particularly interested in efforts to plug a major
heroin pipeline that runs from Burma, also known as 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 the
United States' nearly 1 million addicts comes from Colombia and Mexico. But
in recent years more has come from Burma, whose military dictatorship has
been implicated in the trafficking.

Burma and Afghanistan produce 90 percent of the world's heroin, according
to U.S. estimates. Largely because of drought, Burma'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 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.

The pipeline is a leaky one, creating addicts all along its way.

China's communist government ruthlessly rooted out drug addiction after
taking control in 1949. The Chinese are taught that their nation was
victimized and humiliated by Britain and other European powers a century
ago, when they defeated China in the Opium War and forced it to accept
trade in the widely used narcotic.

The government remains 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.

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

In a rare 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 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.''

China and the United States signed a ``memo of understanding'' on sharing
crime information in 1987, followed in 1997 by a joint statement on the
subject by President Jiang Zemin and President Clinton.

Monday's agreement is expected to lead to much broader cooperation in
several areas, including the war on money laundering.

Cooperation on controlling chemicals used in illicit drug labs and on
combating drug use in sports also is expected, McCaffrey said.