Tobacco Asia

32 tobaccoasia Issue 3, 2026 May / June From there, the drafts become more specific. Tobacco sticks are addressed in terms of additives, limits on banned substances, moisture activity, and material composition. Devices are covered with respect to electrical safety, battery performance, structural integrity, and electromagnetic compat- ibility. The drafts also include safety requirements, overheating protection, pressure relief, and safe- guards intended to prevent accidental ignition. The rationale for a separate set of rules is stated plainly. "Traditional cigarette standards are not fully applicable… due to differences in prod- uct form and consumption method," the docu- ment explains, thereby justifying category-specific requirements. Nicotine pouches are being handled on a parallel track but appear to be at an earlier stage of integration. The draft standard defines them as nicotine-containing oral products and sets expec- tations for raw materials, product composition, labeling, and hygiene. It cites current quality con- cerns as a driver: "Some products have issues in terms of raw materials, nicotine content, and hy- giene indicators." Standardization, in other words, is being positioned as a response to questionable product quality. The policy basis is directly tied to recent government actions. The drafts cite a 2025 State Council directive calling for strict enforcement against unlicensed production and sales of nico- tine-containing products, including oral products, and a 2026 STMA clarification formally placing nicotine pouches within the broader tobacco regu- latory framework. Credit scores for compliance Standards define what a product is. China's next move, at least in e-cigarettes, is to define what a company is allowed to be. A newly issued set of rules, the "Detailed Rules for Credit Management of E-Cigarette-Related Manufacturing Enterprises and Wholesale Enterprises," establishes a nation- wide system for scoring compliance and shaping behavior across the supply chain. This is a recurring feature of China's system. Standards are a prereq- uisite for a market, but they don't set the clock. They define the technical boundaries, while the decision to open, expand, or restrict sales remains a separate policy call. Public consultation on the draft standards began on April 7 and runs through May 7, marking the opening phase of what is expected to be a roughly 22-month development cycle. Within China's framework, this stage is not optional. It is the foun- dational layer. As the policy materials state: "Tobacco regulation… typical- ly follows a sequential path: regulatory or legal classification first, national standards formulation next, product launch arrangements after that, and tax policy later." The country has run this sequence before. E-cigarettes moved through a similar pipeline from 2021 to 2022, progressing from category definition to standards, enforcement, and taxation in a compressed period. Heated tobacco and nicotine pouches now appear to be entering the same channel, suggesting a comparable trajectory over the longer term, even if the timing is not yet clear. For heated tobacco, the draft standards are sweeping and technical. They define heated cigarettes as systems that heat tobacco rather than burn it, producing an aerosol containing nicotine for inhalation. They also situate the category within an international framework, noting that "electrically heated cigarettes are the mainstream form of heated tobacco products and a major research and development direction for multinational tobacco companies." Healthy China 2030 aims to reduce smoking prevalence to around 20% by the end of the decade, down from roughly 26.6% in recent years. Credit: Maria Orlova, Pexels. Authorities have begun drafting mandatory national standards for heated tobacco products and nicotine pouches, bringing both into a formal framework within the country's regulatory system. Credit: Elke Pieper, Nadja Mallock, Frank Henkler-Stephani, and Andreas Luch, CC4.0.

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