Chinese and Vietnamese police launched a joint anti-heroin campaign on December 1, the first of its kind in the border area and lasting around 40 days.
The two countries share a land border of over 2,370 kilometers and, as relations have improved in recent years, they have witnessed a booming frontier trade. Taking Puzhai -- a two-square-kilometer border village -- as an example, it has more than 1,000 stores and receives nearly 30,000 travelers each day from Vietnam, Thailand and the mainland.
But this flourishing business has also made the region a haunt of international heroin traffickers.
In November, southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and the neighboring Vietnamese province of Lang Son decided to tackle the increasingly prevalent heroin trade together.
On December 6, Guangxi police tracked down a Vietnamese woman in Puzhai, seizing over 9,600 grams of heroin from her suitcase and hotel room.
Between December 20 and 22, 900 police officers from Pingxiang City, and Ningming, Longzhou and Daxin counties destroyed a number of traffickers' hideouts and arrested more than 150 drug users.
One 15-year-old boy was apprehended for smuggling in the border village of Tudigong. During his interrogation, the teenager showed composure beyond his age as he explained, "My relative married a Vietnamese woman. She taught me how to smuggle drugs. And for each pack she paid me 10 yuan."
"We already paid his tuition," his parents complained. "He left school and engaged in drug trafficking all day long, turning a deaf ear to other people's advice."
A disturbing scene was uncovered in one of the village's houses: bloody disposable syringes and packing paper were scattered all around, and graffiti in chalk on a paint-peeled wall read, "Baifen (heroin) thirsty? Welcome to the village."
Pointing to another house not far away, a pupil living in the village said: "There are more syringes there. They used to sell drugs in that house. Later addicts hid there to use drugs."
When asked whether he knew using heroin was a crime, the pupil replied: "Of course. My teacher said people could contract HIV by using drugs."
Ningming County shares a boundary of over 200 kilometers with Vietnam, and has four townships along its border where the heroin trade has run rampant. During the December 21 action, police smashed 18 dealers' hideouts and detained 91 suspected drug users.
Since heroin use started to gain ground in China in the 1980s, its use and smuggling have strengthened the prevalence of organized crime as well as the spread of infections like HIV and hepatitis. This has caused tremendous losses in both human and pecuniary terms.
By the end of 2003, there were a total of 1.05 million registered drug users, of whom 74 percent were classified as young people. The situation continues to deteriorate; according to Yang Fengrui, director of the Ministry of Public Security's Anti-drug Bureau, of the nation's total 2,863 counties, 2,201 reported drug cases last year.
Luo Feng, vice minister of public security, said a draft anti-drug law will be submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) for examination and approval this year. It is expected to be formally promulgated in 2006.
Meanwhile, over recent years cooperation has been strengthened with Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar to fight drug trafficking together. As the notorious Golden Triangle has moved northward, Guangxi has become another transfer station, following Yunnan.
Mounting supply has led to widespread consumption. Since the first heroin user was reported here in 1988, by June 2003 the number of registered users in the autonomous region exceeded 50,000 and continues to rise.
Sources with Guangxi's Department of Public Security said the Sino-Vietnamese joint anti-drug campaign aims to crack down on international drug dealers, reduce illegal drug entry to a minimum, and eventually, turn the frontier into a heroin-free area.
(China.org.cn by Shao Da, January 25, 2005)
