In two different cases on Wednesday, United States authorities charged Chinese nationals with offences ranging from conspiring to smuggle advanced AI chips to China to drug trafficking and money laundering.
The cases came on the same day US President Donald Trump announced new mid-May dates for his highly anticipated summit with China. The developments come as the two countries continue to compete over global leadership in artificial intelligence, and as Washington continues to accuse Beijing of playing a key role in the global fentanyl supply chain.
In one case, the US Department of Justice charged a Chinese national and two US citizens with conspiring to violate export controls and smuggle American-made advanced AI chips to China through Thailand. Stanley Yi Zheng, from Hong Kong, alongside US citizens Matthew Kelly and Tommy Shad English, allegedly sought millions of dollars’ worth of export-controlled AI chips for purported illegal shipment to China.
“The cutting-edge AI chips the defendants allegedly schemed to export to China represent the best of American ingenuity and years of strategic investment in maintaining our technological leadership,” said John Eisenberg, US assistant attorney general for national security.
The two countries are competing for global AI dominance, with a US advisory body warning this week that China’s lead in open-source AI could threaten America’s top position globally in the field. The new report by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission claimed China’s strategy of promoting open AI models and leveraging manufacturing dominance is “mutually reinforcing”, forming a feedback loop that could challenge US dominance.
In a separate case on Wednesday, the Justice Department indicted six Chinese nationals and two pharmaceutical companies on charges including drug trafficking, money laundering and terrorism-related offences, in a case tied to the fentanyl supply chain.
The department alleged the defendants marketed and sold various chemical precursors, which they intended for drug traffickers to use in manufacturing fentanyl for distribution in the US.
Three defendants were charged with allegedly attempting to sell precursors and medetomidine to an individual who claimed to be a member of Cártel del Golfo (also known as the Gulf Cartel), which the US authorities designated as a foreign terrorist organisation, under a 2025 executive order. Medetomidine, an animal tranquilliser up to 200 times more powerful than morphine, is often used by drug traffickers to “cut” fentanyl.
The indictment named the companies Shandong Believe Chemical Company Pte Ltd. and Shandong Ranhang Biotechnology Co. Ltd., as well as the individuals Hanson Zhao, Gao Yanpeng, Xia Yi, Zhang Jian, Wang Zhoalan, and Zhang Chunhai.
Prosecutors said these companies used the foreign nationals to solicit, negotiate, and secure payments for illegal cutting agents from US customers, directing them to pay for them using cryptocurrency “transferred to crypto wallets under the foreign national’s control for ultimate deposit into financial institutions located overseas”.
“China’s Ministry of Public Security provided the FBI with critical intelligence that helped advance its understanding and investigation of Shandong Believe Chemical Company and its criminal network,” the Justice Department’s release said.
The fentanyl crisis has killed thousands of Americans, with Washington previously characterising China as the primary source of precursor chemicals used to manufacture the drug, with Beijing feeling unfairly targeted over the crisis.
“We know where the chemical precursors [for fentanyl] are coming from. They are manufactured by the millions of tonnes in China,” said Sara Carter, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, at a UN drugs meeting in March.
When Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea last year, they reached several agreements, including tariff reductions and cooperation on fentanyl precursors. Just last week, China announced a major crackdown on fentanyl precursors in what was widely seen as a gesture of goodwill before Trump’s visit to meet Xi.
The high-stakes US-China summit was originally meant to take place from March 31 to April 2, but was moved after the US and Israel started a military campaign against Iran in late February.
Despite the ongoing war, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on Wednesday that the Beijing summit is expected to take place on May 14 and 15. It will be Trump’s first visit to China in his second term as US president.
Trump posted on social media shortly after the announcement, calling Xi “the Highly Respected President of China” and saying that with first lady Melania Trump, they “will also host President Xi and Madame Peng Liyuan for a reciprocal visit” in Washington at a later date.
“I look very much forward to spending time with President Xi in what will be, I am sure, a monumental event,” he said. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
