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News on the Tobacco Industry in China

E-cigarette maker proves big hit with investors
Feb 5, 2021 (WiC 527)

China’s relationship with tobacco is long and conflicted. The country boasts the world’s largest number of smokers (at least 300 million, or similar to the US population) and their habit puts huge pressure on the healthcare system. Yet the ...

Why a ban on online sales of e-cigarettes is only partly health-related
Nov 15, 2019 (WiC 474)

More than two months ago Donald Trump promised a crackdown on vaping. He said that e-cigarettes that weren’t formulated to taste like tobacco were set to be taken off the market and that the minimum age for purchasing e-cigarettes could be ...

China to tighten oversight of e-cigarette business
Mar 22, 2019 (WiC 445)

It was 2001 when Chinese pharmacist Han Li was trying to give up smoking. He tried nicotine skin patches but he missed the sudden chemical hit he got from having a cigarette. So he began work on a device that would provide not only that but other ...

Making a packet

China Tobacco picks profit over public health
Nov 30, 2018 (WiC 434)

Giving up smoking is hard as an individual. But it’s even harder for governments when cigarettes account for 6% of their tax revenue. That’s the position that China finds itself in. On the one hand it wants to reduce the number of ...

How cigarette sales illustrate economic and social shifts in Dongbei
Feb 24, 2017 (WiC 355)

In Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, the protagonist learns that members of an elite and enigmatic group of capitalists can be recognised by their choice of cigarette: an unknown brand marked by a single, golden dollar symbol on each stick. ...

An unsightly habit

Government officials told they can’t smoke in public
Jan 10, 2014 (WiC 221)

Queen Elizabeth II wrote Deng Xiaoping a letter after visiting Beijing in 1986. In it the British monarch thanked him for not smoking during a five-hour meeting and dinner. But meeting Philippine president Corazon Aquino in 1988, Deng was less ...

Smoke and mirrors

Big Tobacco’s in rude health – just look at its new HQ in Guangzhou
Feb 5, 2010 (WiC 48)

Like a tycoon buying a sports franchise, China National Tobacco Corporation’s soon-to-be-finished Guangzhou head office is intended as a powerful statement. The giant glass-and-steel Pearl River Tower is designed to be the most ...

Smokers and coffers

Cigarette price increase will help the taxman
Jun 26, 2009 (WiC 21)

The year 2278 could be a significant one for China. Why? Well, that’s how long it could take the country to quit smoking. The math is frighteningly simple: if you assume as many Chinese can quit each year as Americans do, it would take 269 ...

Kicking the habit

China’s government worries about the nation’s addiction to nicotine
Mar 20, 2009 (WiC 7)

China can be described as a smokestack in more ways than one. Often used to describe its high pollution levels, the term could just as easily refer to the amount of smoke the country generates from cigarettes. The government has finally ...

Patriotic puffing

China’s massive tobacco industry under fire
Feb 20, 2009 (WiC 3)

In the opening episode of the award-winning American drama, Mad Men, an advertising executive is faced with a conundrum. It is 1960 and the US government has just prohibited cigarette companies from running ads that promote their product as ...