The Chinese government has issued a revised draft of its vaping products standards that includes a ban on domestic sales of products containing non-tobacco flavors. The flavor rules, if finalized, will take effect May 1, along with stringent licensing requirements for manufacturers.

Public comments are being accepted on the new rules until March 17, but the decision to ban flavors will probably stick. The draft rules were cheered by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which claimed a flavor ban “is the right move to protect Chinese kids from these addictive products.”

The rules will also prohibit sales in China of refillable products and synthetic nicotine, and will limit e-liquid nicotine strength to 20 mg/mL. Additionally, the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) will create a “unified national electronic cigarette transaction management platform,” where manufacturers, wholesalers and domestic Chinese retailers will conduct all business.

The Chinese government has also proposed restricting vape exports from China to products allowed in destination countries. It’s still unclear if this provision will be adopted (or enforced), but as written the rule would prevent manufacturers from shipping products not specifically authorized in the countries receiving the shipments. For countries without specific rules, manufacturers and wholesalers would have to follow the rules for the domestic Chinese market.

If I ran an organization genuinely committed to ending smoking, I would simply not suggest that the US take its cues on vaping policy from a notoriously repressive government that also runs a tobacco monopoly producing 2 trillion cigarettes a year.https://t.co/jsII0gSUjX

The Chinese vaping product export business is huge—$15.6 billion, according to the Shanghai Daily—and is responsible for three million jobs in the country. Chinese research firm iiMedia says there are more than 170,000 e-cigarette businesses in China. Rules preventing open-system products from being shipped to the United States (because the FDA has not specifically authorized their sale) would shutter many of those manufacturing businesses and put many employees out of work.

The first product standards draft, announced last December, had left the question of flavors open. The announcement last Friday sent the stock price of Chinese e-cigarette leader RELX Technology tumbling. The company manufactures and sells closed-system devices in a variety of flavors.

In addition to flavor restrictions, the new rules will force major e-cigarette sellers like RELX to sell competitors’ brands in their Chinese stores—something they don’t do currently. The company’s share price on the New York Stock Exchange fell more than 36 percent following the Chinese government announcement, according to Shanghai Daily.

🇨🇳 China's State T. M. Adm. confirms that it will implement license management for E-cig production, wholesale and retail entities from May 1. Standardization, rigidity at points of sale, and banning flavors are some of the measures, just released the Agencia de Noticias Xinhua.

More than half of Chinese men smoke cigarettes (26.6 percent of all adults), according to the World Health Organization. Nearly as many people in China smoke as the entire U.S. population—more than 300 million.

Relatively few Chinese residents vape compared to the number that smoke. But even small percentages of the massive Chinese consumer base translate to a lot of money. The Chinese domestic e-cigarette market has grown at a rate of 70 percent a year since 2013, according to the Global Times, and is valued at about $1.3 billion.

Last November, the government passed a law bringing the vaping industry under control of the STMA, which both regulates and manages the country’s huge tobacco industry. The monopoly administration controls the China National Tobacco Corporation—the largest cigarette manufacturer in the world, and the source of more than five percent of the huge nation’s tax revenue.

GOVERNMENT PLEASE BAN CIGARETTES AND ALCOHOL AND DRUGS WHICH MILLIONS OF CHILDREN FROM SCHOOLS AND STREETS GET AFFECTED IN THEIR LIFE AND SOME LOOSE THEIR LIVES. THEN YOU BRING THE TOPIC OF VAPE. THIS IS RIDICULOUS

How about we just don’t ban anything, but leave it up to adults to decide what drugs they use?

Do you really think Chinese companies will stop shipping hardware to the US, should this pass? For some reason I just can’t see that happening, but maybe I’m being naïve? If so, I guess I’ll have to switch over to building coils (which is something I’m not terribly fond of doing BUT it’s doable.

I’m not sure what will happen. I doubt that companies attempting to do business in China would try to game the rules, but I suspect a lot of stuff would continue to come through. There are so many ways products could be routed here. We’ll just have to see what happens. It may be that policing exports will be low on the Chinese governments priority list.