I. The Initial Introduction and Early Development of Tobacco in China
Tobacco is not a native crop of China; it originated in the Americas. After Christopher Columbus discovered tobacco in South America, it was quickly introduced to mainland China during the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty in the 16th century. When tobacco was first brought to China, it quickly attracted attention and spread rapidly due to its effects such as refreshing the mind. However, just a few decades later, Emperor Chongzhen regarded it as a "demonic herb" and launched a vigorous crackdown on it. In the Qing Dynasty, selling or growing tobacco was even regarded as a serious crime "equivalent to colluding with foreign tribes". Throughout the Qing Dynasty, the government never ceased its efforts to ban tobacco. Even during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom period, **The Theory of Heavenly Principles clearly stipulated that "those who consume foreign opium shall be beheaded without mercy", and those who smoked water pipes or dry tobacco would be flogged for the first offense and executed for the third offense.
II. The Emergence and Development of Modern Cigarette Industry
(I) The Entry and Expansion of Foreign-Funded Cigarette Enterprises
At the end of the 19th century, machine-made cigarettes began to emerge in China's treaty ports. Between 1890 and 1902, only 10 years after the invention of the Bonsack cigarette machine, the machine-made cigarette industry originated in China. At that time, as one of the first mass-marketed products of the industrial age, cigarettes were often regarded as a typical symbol of "Western power" in modern consumer culture. In 1902 (the 28th year of the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty), James Buchanan Duke, the founder of the British-American Tobacco Company, noticed the huge market potential contained in China's large population and decided to enter the Chinese market. To open up the market, the British-American Tobacco Company adopted a series of marketing strategies: it sent people to distribute cigarettes to men who had just disembarked at docks, used images of glamorous female stars to attract young men, and obtained the right to use automatic cigarette machines to achieve large-scale production. They not only erected the largest and most costly billboard in China at that time in Shanghai but also pushed cigarette prices to the lowest level—one copper coin could buy 5 high-quality cigarettes. Seventeen years after entering the Chinese market, the company was able to produce 243 million cigarettes per week.
(II) The Difficult Start of the National Cigarette Industry
In the 1890s, Chinese entrepreneurs began to enter the expanding cigarette market, mostly adopting labor-intensive manual production methods. In 1898, three Cantonese merchants founded China's first cigarette factory—the Maoda Cigarette Manufacturing Workshop—in Yichang, Hubei Province, but it closed down only two years later. Around 1899, several manual cigarette enterprises appeared in Shanghai, such as "Fan Qing Ji" established by Fan Shanqing, which employed about 50 female cigarette workers and sold its products to regions including the Jiangnan area, Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi.
With the awakening of national consciousness, especially from 1905 to the 1930s, Chinese nationalism rose significantly, and movements to boycott foreign goods occurred frequently. Against this background, national cigarette enterprises represented by the Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Company strived to build consumers' loyalty to "domestic products". Enterprises such as Huacheng Tobacco Company and Lixing Cigarette Factory consolidated their consumer base by positioning their brands for specific social groups in different regions. After 1925, thousands of small workshops producing hand-rolled cigarettes emerged. In 1928, Yu Yaoxi, the president of the Jinan Commercial Port Chamber of Commerce, invested to reorganize the Dongyulong Oil Press and founded the Beiyang Dongyulong Tobacco Company (later renamed "Huabei Dongyulong Tobacco Company"). This was the first machine-made cigarette enterprise in Jinan, with major brands including "Jiahe" and "Douji" (Fighting Chicken). There is a saying that the "Douji" brand cigarettes were named to compete with the "Chicken" brand cigarettes of the British-American Tobacco Company, reflecting the spirit of resistance of national entrepreneurs.
III. The Transformation and Development of the Cigarette Industry After the Founding of the People's Republic of China
(I) Exploration and Development During the Planned Economy Period
In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, everything was waiting to be rebuilt. Due to the relatively high purchase price of tobacco leaves, many farmers were willing to grow tobacco. In 1950, Zhu Zunquan and his colleagues took on the task of developing China's best cigarette. After tasting and comparing a large number of tobacco leaves, Zhu Zunquan finally blended "Zhonghua"—New China's first high-grade cigarette brand. Since then, through the efforts of several generations of tobacco workers, "Zhonghua" cigarettes have won wide recognition from consumers.
Zhu Zunquan also led his colleagues to summarize the "Five Uniformities and Three Consistencies" tobacco cultivation technology, which was promoted nationwide, driving the tobacco agriculture towards high quality and high yield. At the same time, they carried out manual tobacco leaf fermentation work, solving the problem of the shortage of aged tobacco leaves in cigarette factories across the country in the early days of the People's Republic of China. A set of unique Chinese cigarette processing technologies was formed, and the 16-grade flue-cured tobacco standard was formulated, unifying the national tobacco leaf grading standard.
(II) Adjustment and Take-off After the Reform and Opening-up
In the early 1980s, cigarette factories around the country developed blindly, resulting in a large number of cigarette brands—there were more than 3,000 cigarette brands nationwide. From 1982 to 1988, more than 300 small cigarette factories were shut down across the industry, and a large number of cigarette brands were eliminated, which improved the market competition situation and enabled some advantageous brands to develop.
In the 1990s, the market witnessed oversupply (production exceeding sales). The industry's regulatory policy shifted to "controlling the total volume, improving quality, adjusting the structure, and increasing efficiency", transforming from a "speed-and-benefit-oriented" model to a "quality-and-benefit-oriented" one. Cigarette sales tended to stabilize, brand integration advanced in an orderly manner, and the sales volume of famous and high-quality cigarettes doubled in a decade. However, cigarette brands were still numerous but not large-scale, and diverse but not strong.
Entering the new century, the strategy of "large market, large brands, and large enterprises" and the concept of "Chinese-style cigarettes" emerged. In 2004, the **Cigarette Product Catalog of 100 Brands was introduced to accelerate brand integration, reducing the number of national cigarette brands from 1,049 to 315. In 2008, the Targeted Integration Product Catalog of Cigarette Brands promoted cross-provincial brand integration, reducing the number of national brands to more than 150 by the end of the year. During this period, consumers' recognition of Chinese-style cigarettes deepened, and the market share of foreign cigarettes gradually shrank.
(III) The Pattern and Innovation of the Modern Cigarette Industry
At the beginning of the second decade of the new century, the "532" and "461" brand development goals were put forward—"532" refers to brand scale, and "461" refers to brand value. Guided by these goals, the number of Chinese-style cigarette brands dropped to less than 100, successfully keeping foreign cigarettes out of the domestic market. Today, Chinese-style cigarettes account for more than 99% of the domestic market share, becoming the absolute mainstay. Among the top 10 cigarette brands in the world, Chinese brands hold 7 seats. Facing the proposition of high-quality development under the modern tobacco economic system, the "Three Major Strategies" and Chinese-style cigarettes remain the key themes of the industry's development. A brand development system with prominent priorities and high concentration, along with the "136, 345" brand orientation, has become a new round of driving force for the development of cigarette brands.
The history of Chinese cigarettes has witnessed the cultural conflicts when tobacco was first introduced, the rise of the modern national cigarette industry in difficult circumstances, and the continuous exploration, adjustment, and innovation after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Today, China's cigarette industry is moving towards the future with a brand-new posture while inheriting and developing its legacy.**