A Chinese court on Thursday imprisoned nine people, one whom got a suspended death sentence, on charges of smuggling fentanyl into the United States, in the first such case the two countries had worked on together. China has faced U.S. criticism for not doing enough to prevent the flow of fentanyl into the United States, and the issue has become another irritant in their ties, already strained by a bruising trade war the two are now working to end. Fentanyl is a highly addictive synthetic opioid, 50 times more potent than heroin.
