The Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao is leading a nation-wide campaign to persuade his fellow citizens to increase their consumption of the precious, white liquid with its high protein and calcium content.

Last year, he made an inscription at a milking station in central China which read: "I have a dream -- all Chinese, above all children, should be able to drink half a litre of milk per day."

And when, earlier this week, the whole nation held its breath as sixty-nine miners were trapped after heavy rain submerged passage ways in their colliery, no news report failed to mention that they were being fed milk down a ventilation pipe.

Milk increases height

But the rumours have already begun that none of this is a coincidence. It seems that China might be jealous of Japan. Until well into the 1950s, the average Japanese was relatively small but the fact that the 21st century Japanese are considerably taller is being attributed to a massive growth in milk consumption.

Which is why the Chinese government is saying: "A glass of milk a day can make a nation strong." But one random supermarket customer didn't know the slogan although she was buying milk.

"We all have our daily amount and we've been drinking it for over ten years," she explained. "Before we would buy milk powder. You needed a special pass for fresh milk. But now there are so many different makes -- Yili, Mengniu, Sanyuan. But from my personal experience, I think milk is good. My whole family drinks milk every day."

12 million cows

An estimated 300 million Chinese have taken up the milk-drinking habit. 12 million Chinese cows produce about thirty million tonnes of the liquid a year -- twice as much as in 2000. But this is not enough apparently. Which is why milk powder is being bought from abroad.

Another reason why foreign milk powder is favoured by some consumers is that imported products have a better reputation than home-grown goods which have been subject to a variety of food scandals in recent months.

One seller of the product sang its praises: "This milk powder is best for babies. Its ingredients are 100 percent imported. You can rely on it. And it's much easier on the digestive system. It also helps develop the baby's sight and brain. Milk is naturally healthy and not only for babies but for adults too."

And now, with the booming economy, the benefits of milk are becoming more accessible to a growing sector of the population as more and more people can afford something that is just as white as milk and indispensable for keeping it fresh -- a refrigerator.