Xi Vowed To Curb Smoking, But Cigarette Sales Tell A Different China Story

More than a decade after Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed to tighten control over tobacco, the country remains the world's biggest cigarette market by a huge margin. China, home to 141.3 crore people, now accounts for 47.2 per cent of global cigarette consumption, even as smoking rates in much of the world continue to fall.

The numbers underline how sharply China has diverged from global trends. Between 2003 and 2023, cigarette consumption in the country climbed by 39 per cent. Over the same period, cigarette sales across the rest of the world dropped by 26.4 per cent.

China today sits at the centre of the global tobacco industry, with an estimated 2.44 trillion cigarettes sold annually, according to a report by a nongovernmental organisation set up by former officials from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

At the heart of that dominance is the state-run China National Tobacco Corporation (CNTC), better known as China Tobacco. The company produces somewhere between 40 and 50 per cent of all cigarettes consumed worldwide, more than several multinational tobacco companies put together.

Why Cigarettes Sales Have Grown

Even though the share of smokers in China has declined over the past 13 years, largely because fewer young people are taking up smoking, cigarette sales have continued to grow. Cheap prices have played a major role. A packet of cigarettes in China costs roughly $3 on average, about one-third of what smokers pay in the United States.

One of the most unusual aspects of China's tobacco system is that the same state authority oversees regulation and also runs the country's biggest cigarette manufacturer. China's State Tobacco Monopoly Administration acts both as regulator and operator of the China National Tobacco Corporation.

The financial scale of the business makes its influence hard to ignore. In 2025, China Tobacco reportedly generated $244 billion through profits and taxes, amounting to roughly 7 per cent of China's government revenue, nearly equal to what Beijing says it spends on defence, according to a report by the New York Times.

How Cigarette Sales Help The Chinese Government

That revenue has become increasingly important as China's economy slows and the prolonged property crisis weakens local governments' earnings from land sales.

The tobacco giant has also funnelled money into some of Xi's broader economic priorities. Last year, it invested more than $1 billion into one of China's largest banks as part of efforts to stabilise the financial system. It has also emerged as a key supporter of China's $100 billion semiconductor investment programme.

Its economic weight has translated into political influence as well. The head of the tobacco administration holds a rank equivalent to that of a deputy government minister. At the same time, the sector has repeatedly been hit by corruption scandals, with seven former top officials arrested over the past seven years.

China has moved aggressively in some areas. In 2022, regulators extended tobacco controls to vaping products, introducing tighter rules on sales and banning flavoured vapes. Yet unlike several Western countries where vaping cut into cigarette use, e-cigarettes have done little to reduce smoking demand in China.

Although Beijing signed the World Health Organization's tobacco-control treaty back in 2005, it has never fully enforced the treaty's toughest measures.

One of the tobacco administration's most significant wins came around 2017, when it successfully resisted efforts to introduce a nationwide indoor smoking ban. Responsibility was instead pushed onto local governments, where enforcement has often remained weak.

China's cigarette packaging also looks strikingly different from that in many countries. Instead of graphic health warnings, packs typically feature a single-line caution alongside national imagery such as pandas or the Gate of Heavenly Peace.

Research within China has itself pointed to the state's conflicting role in the tobacco sector. A 2022 study published by the Chinese CDC concluded that the country's failure to significantly reduce smoking stemmed from interference by the state monopoly and the government's "ambiguous attitudes" toward tobacco.

Another study by Zheng Rong, a professor at University of International Business and Economics, found that around half the revenue generated from every cigarette sold by Chinese manufacturers ultimately went to the government.

How The Momentum Behind Anti-Smoking Campaigns Slowed

There were signs early in Xi's leadership that Beijing might seriously confront the tobacco industry.

Soon after taking office in 2013, the government issued directives banning officials from smoking during official events or in public places, urging them to show "exemplary compliance" with the rules.

Two years later, in 2015, China increased tobacco taxes, driving cigarette prices up by more than 10 per cent.

But momentum behind anti-smoking campaigns later slowed. One major reason was Beijing's broader crackdown on foreign nongovernmental organisations beginning in 2015. Many of those groups had been key funders of anti-smoking initiatives in the country.

Despite the setbacks, China still officially says it wants to reduce the national smoking rate from the current 23 per cent to 20 per cent by 2030.