While AsiaPundit has been a bear on China he will admit that there have been some encouraging signs that domestic consumption is picking up. As earlier reported, Chinese consumers are now buying the cheap sex toys that the country produces. Now it seems that China is moving upscale in illicit drug consumption.:

Chinese and U.S. agents seized more than 300 pounds of cocaine smuggled from Colombia — the country’s largest ever cocaine bust — and arrested nine people involved in a drug ring in southern China, authorities said today.

The case illustrates how South American drug gangs are aggressively moving into Asia to exploit new markets and expand their global distribution chains, said William Fiebig, a Beijing-based agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

“It’s a market, a huge market,” he said.

The seizure and arrests were made in March following a two-month investigation that was aided by key intelligence from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said Liu Guangping, spokesman for the Customs General Administration of China. It was the first time Chinese and U.S. authorities had worked together on a drug investigation.

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