The Commerce Ministry and other authorities jointly announced the new regulations ahead of this week’s meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump. The additions bring the number of chemicals under such controls to 18.
The U.S. has called China the world’s largest producer of many of the precursor chemicals used in the illicit production of fentanyl, methamphetamine and other deadly synthetic drugs. It has urged Beijing to take more aggressive action to reduce the flow of unregulated precursor chemicals.