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Photographer: Erika Kinetz/AP Photo Photographer: Erika Kinetz/AP Photo

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China sentenced three nationals to maximum punishments for smuggling fentanyl to the U.S., in one of its highest-profile moves yet against the illicit flow of opioids that President Donald Trump has made a bone of contention in broader trade talks between Washington and Beijing.

Liu Yong was sentenced to death with a two year reprieve, while two accomplices -- Jiang Juhua and Wang Fengxi -- received life sentences, Chinese officials said at a press conference in northern Hebei province on Thursday. A reprieved death sentence has the possibility of being commuted down to a life sentence, if the person shows good behavior within the allotted period.

Another six people involved in the smuggling ring, which started in 2016, were sentenced to jail time of between six months to two years, officials said. The convictions are the first to arise from China’s joint investigation with American law enforcement into smuggling of the highly-addictive painkiller that has been blamed for thousands of overdose deaths in the U.S.

The flashy sentencing comes as the two countries strive to negotiate a deal to at least partially resolve a tit-for-tat tariffs war that’s now into its second year and has caused economic losses on both sides. Washington has long criticized Beijing for not doing enough to curb the flow of fentanyl, whose victims are concentrated in rural areas where Trump has broad support.

On its part, China has attempted to balance the need to appease Trump on the fentanyl issue, while insisting it is not the main source of illicit fentanyl flow to the U.S. and that American politicians are using the accusations as a political weapon.

Rx, Heroin, Fentanyl -- How the Opioid Crisis Evolved: QuickTake

That tightrope act was on display again on Thursday’s press conference in Hebei. Although an American official from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was present and spoke at the event, Yu Haibing, deputy secretary general of the China National Narcotics Control Commission, stressed that useful information from U.S. law enforcement has been “limited” and said that the sentencings were in the context of China’s strict regulation of drugs domestically.

“This further demonstrates the Chinese government’s consistent attitude of zero tolerance towards drug crimes,” he said. “This case has nothing to do with the trade war,” he said later in response to a question from Bloomberg.

The probe started with a phone number provided by the Guangzhou office of U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement. More than 20 suspects were captured or investigated and the police cracked down on one fentanyl manufacturing base, two sales outlets and seized 11.9 kilograms of fentanyl, along with 19.1 kilograms of other drugs including alprazolam, said Yu.

China has altogether investigated three fentanyl smuggling cases so far based on information received from U.S. law enforcement, and this is the first to result in criminal convictions.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro considers the issue one of China’s “seven deadly sins” that the country must address in any trade deal. China has emphasized that it is not the main source of fentanyl flow into the U.S. and that the American epidemic of opioid overdose deaths is due to lax domestic regulation over prescription drugs.

Tablets believed to be laced with fentanyl at the DEA laboratory in New York, Oct. 2019.

“China’s control of fentanyl has become more strict, but the number of deaths in the U.S. from fentanyl have risen. This shows that China is not the source of the problem,“ said Yu.

Last year, China tightened supervision and revised rules around fentanyl production after the two presidents met at the Group of 20 summit in Argentina, and has allowed U.S. law enforcement authorities to be more closely involved in investigating smuggling rings within China.

The widely-publicized sentencing on Thursday will likely help Trump sell his trade deal at home where he’s facing a skeptical business community and farmers hurt by his tariffs. The event may also boost Trump’s effort to make the deal palatable to hardliners inside his administration who are pushing for structural concessions by Beijing.

“As the success of the joint investigation demonstrates, Chinese and American investigators have the capacity to collaborate across international borders,” Austin Moore, the attaché from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said at Thursday’s briefing.

— With assistance by James Mayger, and Zhe Huang

( Updates with names of people sentenced in second paragraph. )