China's anti-drug efforts in the past year resulted in the cracking of several key transnational drug trafficking cases and the planting of opium replacement crops in the "Golden Triangle" areas, China's police said on Wednesday.

 

On September 17, police in Yunnan Province and Shanghai broke a transnational drug trafficking ring involving 13 suspects and 430 kilograms of drugs, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

 

Cooperation with police in the United States and the United Arab Emirates helped to break a major drug trafficking ring on July 31 with two foreign suspects arrested and two kilograms of heroin seized.

 

Collaboration with Russian police led to the seizure of 1.11 kilogram of methamphetamine, or "ice," in December last year and discovery of a ring that had been smuggling drugs from northeast China's Heilongjiang and Liaoning Provinces and southeast China's Guangdong Province to Russia.

 

China was experiencing an increase in drug trafficking from the Golden Triangle, an area along the Mekong River delta, including Myanmar and Laos, and the Golden Crescent area in western Asia.

 

The government had launched opium replacement planting schemes in Myanmar and Laos and other neighboring countries. Rubber, tea and other cash crops were grown as substitutes.

 

With the help of China and the international community, the opium poppy cultivation acreage in the "Golden Triangle" was reduced to 24,160 hectares, down 85 percent from the figure eight years ago, the ministry said.

 

The opium poppy cultivation acreage in Myanmar had dropped by 108,800 hectares or 83 percent from the figure in 1998.

 

The government also allocated 250 million yuan (US$31.25 million) to support Chinese companies in opium replacement planting in neighboring countries.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 23, 2006)