This Day, That Year

Item from May 22, 1994, in China Daily: A 4-meter-high, 6.2-meter-long "cannon" wine decanter is positioned beside a billboard in eastern Beijing to help promote Courvoisier X.O., the French cognac ... To cognac producers, China has become a land of irresistible attraction.

The Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan markets have together replaced Japan as the biggest consumer of foreign-brand liquor in Asia, and the Asian market has become the most important for all of the world's cognac producers ... Many foreign liquor producers are launching plants in China. Martell has established two joint ventures in Tianjin and Shanghai.

China's growing middle class continues to develop an appetite for Western liquor.