The headlines tell us it's a drug crisis. The statistics say it's an epidemic. But what if the truth is darker than that? What if what we call the fentanyl crisis is not just a tragedy—but a strategy?
Over 100,000 Americans died last year from drug overdoses—most from fentanyl. This synthetic opioid is so powerful that just two milligrams—barely the weight of a snowflake—can kill. It is cheap to make, easy to smuggle, and nearly impossible to track once it hits the street.
And it overwhelmingly comes from China.
Yes, Mexican cartels are the hands moving it across the border. But the chemicals—the precursors that make it possible—are manufactured in Chinese labs, often with government knowledge, if not outright support. Beijing knows exactly what's happening. And it continues.
Why?
To understand this, we must go back over 180 years—to the Opium Wars.
In the 1800s, the British Empire flooded China with opium grown in India, destroying entire generations of Chinese families and weakening the Qing dynasty. The addiction crisis was so catastrophic that China tried to stop it. The British responded with war—not once, but twice—forcing open Chinese ports and exacting humiliating concessions.
For China, this was not just a historical injustice. It was a national humiliation, etched deep into the country's collective memory. Chinese leaders speak openly and often about "the century of humiliation"—a time they believe was marked by foreign exploitation, degradation, and weakness.
And to them, fentanyl is not just a drug. It's payback.
It is strikingly symmetrical: in the 19th century, Western powers weakened China by exporting addictive narcotics. In the 21st century, China appears to be returning the favor—slowly poisoning a rival power from within, without ever firing a shot.
Is this conspiracy theory? No. It is strategy.
China has long practiced a doctrine of asymmetric warfare—winning without open combat. Military documents like Unrestricted Warfare, written by senior PLA colonels in 1999, lay out a blueprint for using non-military tools to weaken an adversary: economic manipulation, cyber warfare, cultural infiltration, and yes—narco-warfare.
Fentanyl fits perfectly into this strategy. It undermines American society at its foundations:
- It kills working-age citizens—especially men.
- It breaks families and burdens local communities.
- It overflows hospitals, prisons, and police departments.
- It saps national morale and cohesion.
- It distracts leadership and drains public resources.
And all the while, it's deniable. Beijing doesn't need to ship it directly. They just look the other way while rogue labs and front companies push it out to cartel partners.
If this isn't war, what is?
China's aggression doesn't look like tanks and missiles—not yet. It looks like manipulation of supply chains, takeover of U.S. farmland, TikTok influence campaigns, cyber-espionage—and fentanyl. It's death by a thousand cuts.
We can no longer afford to treat the fentanyl crisis as a domestic problem alone. This is foreign aggression, cloaked in complexity, exploiting our vulnerabilities, and bleeding us slowly.
It is time to recognize the truth: China remembers the Opium Wars. And in its eyes, fentanyl may not be collateral damage—it may be calculated revenge.
And unless America wakes up, the next war may already be underway—and we're losing.
"China's Role in US Fentanyl Crisis Directed by Regime Leadership, Expert
Says
Insiders say fentanyl is at the core of the Chinese Communist Party's
bid to take revenge on the West, and America makes a perfect enemy.
By Terri Wu, Olivia Li
March 31, 2025 Updated:April 01, 2025
Tensions have been simmering between the United States and communist
China as the two countries escalate tariffs on each other's imports.
Meanwhile, Beijing's rhetoric has become increasingly confrontational.
In early March, the Chinese Embassy in Washington shared a social media
post from its Foreign Ministry, repeating its message: "If war is what
the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of
war, we're ready to fight till the end." ...
To this day, China remains the primary source of fentanyl precursors,
which are shipped to Mexico, where they're manufactured into the illicit
drug. It is then smuggled into the United States mainly via the southern
border. ...
Yuan Hongbing, a former law professor at Peking University in China who
now lives in Australia, said the American opioid epidemic is far from
the self-inflicted wound the CCP has suggested it is.
The Chinese regime has played a significant role in America's fentanyl
crisis, and blaming the United States for it has long been Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping's strategy, Yuan told NTD, Epoch
Times' sister media outlet, in a recent episode of the Chinese-language
program "Pinnacle View."
Yuan, who has insider access to senior CCP leaders, said Xi has
consistently given internal directives during both Trump's first and
second terms that Beijing must maintain the narrative that the drug
crises in both Europe and the United States are not linked to China.
Yuan said the regime has also been directed by Xi to assert that China
makes the chemical precursors legally, and that if they are converted
into deadly drugs and smuggled into the United States or Europe, it is
not China's responsibility.
The China expert further stated that fentanyl is at the core of Xi's bid
to "take revenge" on the West. He said Xi blames the West for subjecting
China to a century of humiliation as a result of the Opium Wars in the
mid-19th century. During that time, China had to sign a series of
unequal treaties that ceded Chinese territory and opened Chinese ports
to foreign control.
"It is precisely due to Xi's directives that we are now seeing a
dramatic increase in both the production of fentanyl precursors in China
and the export of these chemicals, fueling the ongoing fentanyl crisis
in the United States," Yuan said.
Fentanyl overdose deaths have become a national crisis, taking more than
200 American lives per day, according to the Drug Enforcement
Administration. In 2023 alone, about 75,000 Americans
<https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2024/12/16/deas-od-justice-devotes-critical-resources-fatal-drug-poisoning-and>
died from fentanyl overdose, a staggering 23-fold increase from 10 years
ago. ...
The fentanyl crisis has become a key concern among American voters and
has become one of the driving forces behind the dynamics of U.S.–China
relations, said China expert Alexander Liao.
He said relations between Beijing and Washington have fundamentally
changed. During the Biden administration, the two countries went through
a diplomatic "ice age," when senior-level official communication froze
for approximately 10 months in 2022 and 2023. However, Liao believes the
confrontation has now escalated to a new level.
"Whether it's trade or other aspects, the United States and China have
basically turned against each other," Liao told The Epoch Times.
"Little noise but fierce action" is how he categorizes the current state
between Beijing and Washington, in contrast to the "big arguments and
little action" going on between the United States and Europe. ...
Xi's end game, Yuan said, is to "replace the United States as the
underwriter and enforcer of the world order." Yuan said the two men used
to drink together when Xi was still a provincial-level power figure.
A year after Xi took over China, the death
<https://usafacts.org/articles/are-fentanyl-overdose-deaths-rising-in-the-us/>
toll from fentanyl overdoses in the United States took off. By 2017,
annual deaths reached 28,000. By 2023, the number had ballooned to 75,000.
In 2017, when Beijing knew China had surpassed the United States in GDP
measured by purchasing power, Xi and his cohorts believed that the
"American problem"—replacing the United States as the world's
superpower—would be solved within a decade, according to Liao.
Liao's insider sources in Beijing told him that an optimistic mood rose
within the CCP, resulting in party leaders holding a dismissive attitude
toward the United States.
"In that climate, the hardliners within the CCP essentially set
themselves on an irreversible path of confrontation with the United
States," Liao said. ..."