Fact box

China, one of the countries with the most severe punishments for drug-related crimes, has a zero-tolerance approach toward illegal drugs.

Together with Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, China has jointly established and improved the memorandum of understanding mechanism for drug control in the Greater Mekong subregion.

Over the past 30 years, this procedure has become the most important multilateral drug control cooperation mechanism in the region. In the past five years, more than 200,000 hectares of land in this area have been planted with new crops, including sugar cane, corn, tea and tropical fruit.

Some 200 Chinese companies are working to give farmers in the Golden Triangle alternatives to growing opium poppies. These enterprises have made hundreds of such efforts and developed their work mainly in northern areas of Laos and Myanmar.

Source: Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs