The unexpected rise of the Chinese fentanyl industry in Mexico.
In Guadalajara, Mexico, graffiti artists don’t paint murals of Gan Xianbing. Nor do locals pen elegiac Narcocorridos about his exploits, as they do for traffickers like Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. But for the years before his capture in 2018, Gan Xianbing’s success in the city’s drug trade signaled the emergence of a new power player on the scene: the Chinese national.
As Chinese-made fentanyl — a synthetic opioid 50 times stronger than heroin — has flooded the U.S. market in rec
Exclusive longform investigative journalism, Q&As, news and analysis, and data on Chinese business elites and corporations. We publish China scoops you won't find anywhere else.
A weekly curated reading list on China from David Barboza, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Shanghai correspondent for The New York Times.
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Bob Fu's relationship with China has gone through phases. First, he thought money would solve his problems there; then he joined protesters at Tiananmen Square, thinking the politics could change. In the end, he determined, only God could save China, and he's been fighting for religious freedom in China ever since he resettled in Texas. With his nonprofit, ChinaAid, prospering like never before, he says the U.S. is finally catching on.
A podcast about how the two nations, once friends, are now foes.
Hear why things are so complicated now. Host Jane Perlez, former New York Times Beijing bureau chief, talks with diplomats, spies, cultural superstars like Yo Yo Ma, and more to understand why the dangers are so high, and why relations went awry.