U.S. AND CHINA AGREE ON MEASURES TO FIGHT ILLEGAL DRUGS

BEIJING, June 19 -- The United States and China agreed today to step
up their cooperation against the production and smuggling of illegal
drugs, especially heroin and methamphetamine, which have emerged as
scourges in both countries and throughout much of Asia.

For the last few years, American and Chinese law enforcement agencies
have sometimes cooperated to stop contraband drug shipments. But today
the two governments signed their first legal agreement to share
information and evidence related to drug smuggling, and officials from
both sides predicted more wide-ranging collaboration.

The agreement was announced here by Barry R. McCaffrey, the retired
army general who directs the White House office of national drug
control policy. General McCaffrey is visiting China with counter-drug
officials from several United States agencies as part of an eight-day
tour that will also take them to Hong Kong, Hanoi and Bangkok.

"This is an important moment," General McCaffrey said after two days
of talks with Chinese officials. He said such collaboration was vital
to combatting global heroin trafficking and the fast-rising abuse of
methamphetamine.

Since China began to open its borders in the late 1970's, it has
become a major transit route for heroin produced in southeast Asia,
especially Myanmar, the former Burma. Some of that heroin is shipped
by ethnic-Chinese gangs to the United States, although the bulk heroin
sold in the United States now comes from Latin America, primarily Colombia.

The smuggling has engendered rising heroin addiction inside China,
especially in the southern province of Yunnan and in the western
region of Xinjiang, which receives heroin smuggled from
Afghanistan.

According to General McCaffrey's office, factories in southeast China
are important producers of methamphetamine, which is sold throughout
East Asia and of ephedrine, the ingredient used to produce
methamphetamine.

General McCaffrey listed several areas in which the United States
hopes to gain China's cooperation, including the sharing of "strategic
intelligence" about drug operations, control of money laundering,
control of precursor chemicals like ephedrine, the analysis of seized
drugs to identify their sources and the control of weapons that make
their way to drug gangs.

The United States, last year stationed a Drug Enforcement
Administration agent in Beijing, had also proposed opening an Federal
Bureau of Investigation office, but had not had an answer.

Yang Fengrui, director of drugs at China's Ministry of Public
Security, who appeared with General McCaffrey today, said he believed
Sino-American cooperation "is going to enter a new stage."

"A hundred years ago in the Opium Wars, China was victimized and we
can never forget that pain," Mr. Yang said, recalling an era when
Britain and other colonial European powers forced a defeated China to
accept opium.

Mr. Yang said China was ready to exchange more information to solve
drug cases, to exchange samples from drug seizures and to work
together in controlling precursor chemicals.

The United States has repeatedly praised China's government for making
serious anti-drug efforts. Today, General McCaffrey said he did not
question the determination of Chinese officials to fight drug abuse.

He also praised China, which has been embarrassed by drug scandals in
international athletic competitions, for participating in a new global
agency to combat performance-enhancing drug use in sports.