Booze, smokes: symbols of official graft
China's nouveau riche may use vintage wines from Bordeaux, Louis Vuitton bags and Rolex watches to signal their status. But few things on the mainland denote exclusivity, privilege and power like Maotai, the fiery Chinese liquor, and Zhonghua cigarettes.
Until the 1980s, they were reserved exclusively for Communist Party leaders, senior government officials and their relatives as well as visiting heads of state at official banquets.
Maotai attained a mythical status in the history of the Communist Party. When the Red Army, pursued by Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist forces, fled through the town of Maotai, Guizhou , in the spring of 1935, the hungry and sick soldiers drank the liquor and used it to wash their sore feet, which greatly helped relieve pain and fatigue. Zhou Enlai , the People's Republic's first premier, became an avid drinker and promoter of Maotai, saying half-jokingly that the liquor had saved the Red Army. He was understood to drink the liquor only when he was suffering from the flu. It gained more international exposure in 1972, when he used it to toast Richard Nixon at a state banquet during Nixon's visit to China.
Zhonghua cigarettes were first made in 1950 at the specific request of top leaders including Mao Zedong , a chain smoker.
From 1988, both Maotai and Zhonghua were available to the public, although about 40 per cent of each continued to be reserved for the consumption of officials and their guests. But most of the 60 per cent available for public consumption and export still ended up with government officials because few people could afford them.
Today, a soft-top packet of Zhonghua (or Chunghwa, as preferred by the manufacturer) cigarettes costs 70 yuan (HK$82) , and a bottle of standard Maotai (or Moutai, which the company uses), with an alcoholic content of 53 per cent, can fetch as much as 1,500 yuan. This has given rise to a popular saying on the mainland that the people who drink Maotai or smoke Zhonghua don't buy them, and the people who buy them don't use them. It's interesting to note, however, that those two items have been exempted from mainland economic controls for 30 years.
When Maotai, the national liquor, was made available to the public, the average price was set at 140 yuan per bottle, which was the average monthly salary in many parts of the mainland at that time. It rose more than 800 per cent - to 1,300 yuan last year. At the beginning of this month, the Kweichow Moutai Company raised the average price by another 20 per cent, to 1,500 yuan.