China Confronts Afghan Drugs: Law Enforcement Views of “The Golden Crescent” Dr. Murray Scot Tanner CRM D0024793.A1/Final March 2011 CNA is a non-profit research and analysis organization comprised of the Center for Naval Analyses (a federally funded research and development center) and the Institute for Public Research. The CNA China Studies division provides its sponsors, and the public, analyses of China’s emerging role in the international order, China’s impact in the Asia-Pacific region, important issues in US-China relations, and insights into critical developments within China itself. Whether focused on Chinese defense and security issues, Beijing’s foreign policies, bilateral relations, political developments, economic affairs, or social change, our analysts adhere to the same spirit of non-partisanship, objectivity, and empiricism that is the hallmark of CNA research. Our program is built upon a foundation of analytic products and hosted events. 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China Confronts Afghan Drugs: Law Enforcement Views of “The Golden Crescent” Dr. Murray Scot Tanner Table of Contents Table of Contents.........................................................................................................i List of Tables, Maps, and Figures.............................................................................iii Executive Summary....................................................................................................v Introduction.................................................................................................................1 Chinese Assessments of Smuggling and Trafficking Golden Crescent Drugs into Western China.........................................................6 Chinese Assessments of the Growing Seriousness of Golden Crescent Drug Trafficking in Relation to China’s Overall Illegal Drug Patterns..............10 Chinese Analysis of Key Drug Shipment Routes......................................................16 Chinese Assessment of Problems in Counternarcotics Work ....................................24 Chinese Assessments of Links between Drug Trafficking and Terrorism.................30 Final Thoughts............................................................................................................36 i ii List of Tables, Maps, and Figures Map One: Golden Crescent Countries and Golden Triangle Countries...........................................................................................2 Figure One: Chinese Graphic of Golden Crescent Trafficking..........................................8 Map Two: Major Chinese Highway and Rail Ports Used by Drug Smugglers.............................................................................................19 Map Three: The Karakorum Highway...............................................................................20 iii iv Executive Summary Introduction The rising flow of illegal drugs from the “Golden Crescent” region—Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran—into western China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) has caused increasing concern to Chinese law enforcement officials and analysts. This study seeks to strengthen understanding of Chinese law enforcement perceptions of the Golden Crescent drug problem by making use of previously underexploited Chinese law enforcement publications. Key Findings • Chinese law enforcement officials and analysts now see Golden Crescent trafficking as a major and rapidly growing threat to society. This view reflects a major shift from China’s earlier exclusive focus on the “Golden Triangle” region drug threat. • Chinese law enforcement analysts blame the rise in Golden Crescent drug smuggling on the increase in foreign supply rather than Chinese demand. These analyses tend to understate Chinese domestic problems, such as police corruption, ethnic tensions, and rising drug prices and demand, which may have made China a more attractive drug shipping route. • Chinese analyses of popular Golden Crescent smuggling routes emphasize highway, air, and rail routes through Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan. If correct, these analyses indicate that these four important security partners of Beijing may be failing to prevent trafficking into China across their territory. • The Chinese law enforcement writings reviewed indicate that China has serious weaknesses in its counternarcotics intelligence capabilities and is anxious to overcome them. Problems include meager clandestine intelligence on Asian drug networks, weak data on trafficking by ethnic separatists, and poor intelligence networking and sharing across jurisdictions. • Increasingly sophisticated trafficker techniques coupled with greater linguistic diversity among traffickers are frustrating Chinese law enforcement officials, who find these traffickers more difficult to investigate, detect, and interrogate. • Even though law enforcement analysts confidently assert a significant link between terrorism and drug trafficking, sources reviewed for this study provide very little solid evidence that the two are connected. v vi Introduction The rising inflow of heroin and other illegal drugs from the “Golden Crescent” region— which includes Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran—into western China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) has caused increasing concern among Chinese law enforcement officials and analysts. Between 2005 and 2009, Chinese police sources estimate that Golden Crescent heroin rose from a very small percentage to nearly one- third of all the illegal heroin seized by Chinese police nationwide. This study draws upon previously “Golden Crescent” and “Golden Triangle”: underexploited publications of Chinese Terms for Drug Producing Regions China’s public security and other law enforcement departments to Chinese police analyses of drug trafficking provide a better understanding of into China often refer to two major Asian drug how Chinese officials and analysts producing regions near China’s borders: view the trafficking patterns for Afghan heroin and other illegal “Golden Crescent” (jin xinyue; 金新月) is drugs into China. In the writings analyzed for this study, Chinese formally defined in Chinese police law enforcement officials and publications as the drug producing regions of analysts discuss their concerns Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran, although in about the Golden Crescent drug their analysis, these publications usually treat problem, often in significant detail the term as though it were really synonymous and with unusual frankness. These with Afghanistan. This region borders China’s publications yield important Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the insights, but have yet to receive west-northwest. extensive attention in Western analyses of China’s drug problems. “Golden Triangle” (jin sanjiao; 金三角) is formally defined in police publications as the This introduction provides the drug producing regions of Myanmar, Thailand, outline and the main research and Laos, although in publications examined questions addressed in this study. It for this study the term is treated as largely— also includes a brief introduction to though not exclusively—referring to the report’s research approach, the Myanmar. The Golden Triangle countries law enforcement publications that primarily border China’s Yunnan Province are its main data source, and some (and a small portion of Tibet) in China’s of the research challenges that southwest. these data present. 1 Map One: Golden Crescent and Golden Triangle Countries Study Outline and Main Research Questions The remainder of this study is divided into six sections: • Section One analyzes how Chinese law enforcement analysts and officials assess the patterns of smuggling and trafficking of Golden Crescent drugs into and through China over the past decade. • Section Two examines how serious these analysts and officials believe the problem of Golden Crescent illegal drugs is in relation to China’s overall drug problem. • Section Three examines Chinese police analyses of the key drug shipment routes from the