Online communities have strongly criticized two cities' representative offices in Beijing for spending 660,000 yuan (US$96,552) on 777 bottles of fake Moutai - a well known Chinese liquor.

The Beijing offices of Xuchang City and Luohe City in central China's Henan Province bought the drink for entertaining and to be sold at restaurants and hotels affiliated to them, but it was later found to be fake by guests and the matter was reported to the commerce and industry watchdog in Beijing, Beijing Evening News reported.

All bottles were sealed for further investigation but Netizens urged the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China to investigate the officials buying the liquor.

A Netizen in Anhui Province claimed clerks in Beijing offices were in the custom of entertaining central governmental agencies and senior officials from local government and Moutai was used to ensure their promotion.

Another netizen said the best-selling book Director of Beijing Office had already provided the answer: winning funds and projects from central government was much more important than 777 bottles of Moutai.

Some others said the guests who discovered the drink was fake were not ordinary people but those accustomed to the taste of the expensive liquor.

Police officers from Xicheng branch of the Beijing Public Security Bureau said they had seized three suspects.

From the late 1990s, the number of Beijing offices set up by local governments increased rapidly.

A total of 186 cities established Beijing offices in 1991, but by 2002, the number was 426.

Beijing now has 52 offices set up by sub-province governments or agencies, 520 offices by cities as well as more than 5,000 offices of counties from around the country.

(Shanghai Daily April 14, 2009)