Cover Story: China’s Tobacco Monopoly Is Swept Up in Corruption Probes

China’s state tobacco monopoly, which supplies the world’s largest cigarette market and one in every three smokers on Earth, is engulfed in an anti-corruption sweep that has also snared regulators responsible for overseeing it.

Nearly 20 senior executives and officials from the government-controlled China National Tobacco Corporation (China Tobacco) and the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, the regulator, have been caught up in the anti-graft investigation since 2021.