ABSTRACT
Western cigarettes were first imported into China in the late nineteenth century. The indigenous cigarette industry had received a strong boost from the anti-British boycott growing out of the 30 May incident in Shanghai, and there was a mushroom growth of small Chinese factories which increased from fourteen in 1924 to 182 in 1927. The provincial cigarette tax contravened the tariff regulations for imported goods which had first been set in the ‘unequal treaties’ signed after the Opium war of 1839–1842. The sale of cigarettes annually in China, Mao estimated, must amount to more than 200 million yuan which after payment of a small tax at the source of import or production could not be taxed freely in the provinces. A more humble competitor to bat was the peasant producer of handmade cigarettes. The mostly low-price Chinese-made cigarettes therefore paid tax at rates which were pro-portionately lower than those of the foreign products.
