Hiding under a parasol from the pouring rain, smoking a cheap cigarette outside the hair salon where he works in Guangzhou, Xu is a typical Chinese smoker: he is male, started young and does not think he can quit.
The 16-year-old began smoking in his first year of middle school and now gets through more than a pack a day. “At the time, I thought it was fun, really fun,” he said. “Now I’m addicted and there’s nothing to be done.”
Unlike in much of the world, where strict tobacco controls have led to a sharp decline in smoking, research suggests cigarette sales in China have risen in recent years, with analysts pointing to patchy, loosely enforced regulations and authorities’ reluctance to clamp down on a crucial source of central government revenue.
Despite a high-profile push nearly 10 years ago to reduce smoking rates from Xi Jinping, China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, that problem has become more acute as China’s economic growth has slowed, they added.
“The first thing is: it’s a big revenue [generator]. So that’s why all the tobacco control measures are not very highly effective,” said Zhengming Chen, professor of epidemiology at the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford, adding that Chinese men were some of the heaviest smokers globally.
China produced 2.4tn cigarettes in 2023, with the number having risen in each of the previous five years and gained more than 35 per cent compared with 2003, according to figures from the National Bureau of Statistics.
Figures from Euromonitor show that the country’s share of global sales rose to about 47 per cent last year from less than 38 per cent in 2009, echoing the findings of other studies tracking tobacco in China. The World Health Organization estimates the proportion of the population aged over 15 that use tobacco products excluding e-cigarettes falling by about four percentage points between 2000 and 2025, much slower than the global average.
The figures come as China’s economy grapples with a slowdown in growth following a years-long property sector crisis and persistent concerns about weak consumer demand and deflation.
“When China’s economy is in decline, the best thing is to increase the tobacco tax very substantially,” said Chen, arguing that evidence from European markets showed that tripling the price of cigarettes could halve consumption and double revenues. “[But] with the economic downturn, tobacco is always considered as a necessary commodity.”
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Despite signing the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2003, China has largely left local governments to issue and enforce smoking restrictions independently, leading to a piecemeal framework that is patchily enforced, said analysts.
They also point to China National Tobacco Corporation, which holds the country’s tobacco monopoly. In 2023, it generated Rmb1.5tn ($206bn) in tax revenue, according to official figures. That corresponds to about 7 per cent of central government revenue, analysts said.
Together with its regulatory arm, the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, it employs more than half a million people, according to figures from 2016.
In 2015, around the time Chinese media began reporting that Xi himself had quit smoking, Beijing enacted a citywide indoor smoking ban. Similar measures followed in Shanghai and Shenzhen in 2017.
Despite a flurry of activity and a brief dip in cigarette sales at the time, a push for nationwide legislation has yet to bear fruit, partly due to pressure from the tobacco industry, said Judith Mackay, director of the Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control and an adviser to the WHO.
“A bunch of things have happened, but I have to say the tobacco industry was too strong for them,” she said. “It’s just massively powerful.”
The cost of a pack of cigarettes in China starts from well under Rmb10 and can rise to more than Rmb100. The country does not have laws on plain packaging and only relatively weak stipulations on health warnings. Smokers have a range of ornately packaged brands to choose from, including cigarettes associated with their hometowns or with famous national landmarks.
CNTC’s contribution to government revenue, said Mackay, made it difficult for China to kick its cigarette habit. “It’s a massive amount of money,” she said.
In 2019, CNTC listed shares of its international affiliate in Hong Kong, using the funds to fuel its global expansion, she added. Those shares are up more than 230 per cent since the listing and about 140 per cent last year alone.
China’s National Health Commission said the government was promoting tobacco control, noting that 24 provinces and 254 cities had issued their own regulations to control smoking. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology did not respond to a request for comment. CNTC was not reachable for comment.
For Fanny Huang, a finance worker in her 40s from Guangzhou who enjoys flavoured, slim cigarettes for Rmb15 a pack, the lack of public smoking bans means there are few incentives to stop smoking.
“I know that overseas there are very few places where you can smoke. In China, there’s no such thing,” said Huang, who began smoking aged 14 and now gets through about half a pack a day. “I smoke whenever I have free time.”
Additional reporting by Wenjie Ding
