page_title: Salt in Chinese history
section_title: Salt, politics, and health in the People’s Republic of China
hierarchical_section_title: Salt in Chinese history / The 20th century and the end of the salt gabelle / Salt, politics, and health in the People’s Republic of China
caption_attribution_description: English: Remaining slat flat within the boundaries of the Port. The Tianjin coast used to be dominated by salt- and mudflats, until land reclamation covered them up.
context_page_description: Salt, salt production, and salt taxes played key roles in Chinese history, economic development, and relations between state and society. The lure of salt profits led to technological innovation and new ways to organize capital. Debate over government salt policies brought forth conflicting attitudes toward the nature of government, private wealth, the relation between the rich and the poor, while the administration of these salt policies was a practical test of a government's competence.
  Because salt is often considered a necessity of life, the tax on it had a broad base and could be set at a low rate and still be one of the most important sources of government revenue. In early times, governments gathered salt revenues by managing production and sales directly. After innovations in the mid-8th century, imperial bureaucracies reaped these revenues safely and indirectly by selling salt rights to merchants who then sold the salt in retail markets. Private salt trafficking persisted because monopoly salt was more expensive and of lower quality, while local bandits and rebel leaders thrived on salt smuggling.
context_section_description: With the founding of the China National Salt Industry Corporation in February 1950, the new government re-established the monopoly of salt production, eventually driving old style and private salt companies out of business.  By the 1960s, old style methods of producing salt gave way to large scale production in state owned factories. Improved infrastructure increased access to the major salt flats of Qinghai, such as those surrounding Dabusun Lake. The Zigong Salt Museum preserves one well to demonstrate the traditional methods, but by 2011, China's production of table salt was the largest in the world. In 2014, the Chinese government announced plans to end the salt monopoly and government price controls starting from 2016.
  As elsewhere in the world, salt became a public health concern. The government took steps to combat the historical problem of iodine deficiency in the western, southern, and eastern regions of the country, which historically did not derive their salt from ocean water.  To eliminate sources of non-iodized salt from private salt producers, the Chinese government established a salt police with 25,000 officers to enforce the salt monopoly.  Consumption of iodized salt reached 90% of the Chinese population by 2000.
caption: Present Day Salt Flats at Tianjin
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