A retired senior tax official openly supported the controversial "tobacco academician" Xie Jianping, citing tobacco industry's great importance to the nation's taxation.

Yang Chongchun, head of the Chinese Tax Institute and former deputy director of the State Administration of Taxation, made the remarks at an awareness-raising event for tobacco control, held by Beijing Normal University to mark World No Tobacco Day, which falls on May 31 each year.

The remarks were met by harsh criticism from anti-tobacco activists and public health experts.

Xie was elected as a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering for the "low tar, less harmful" cigarette research in December 2011.

"The tobacco industry, harmful to health, is a major contributor to China's tax income, and thus it's loved and hated," Yang said.

Given its great significance to China's taxation, "there should be more research to possibly lower its health risks, as the academician Xie Jianping has done," he added.

According to Yang, the tobacco industry contributed more than 959.9 billion yuan ($153.88 billion) in taxes last year, accounting for 8.6 percent of the nation's total.

In 1984, it played an even bigger role, contributing 11.2 percent of the nation's total tax money, he said.

Wu Yiqun, deputy director of Think Tank, an NGO committed to greater controls on tobacco and smoking, denounced that as absurd.

"Tobacco kills, and the government should also consider economic losses in terms of medical bills for tobacco-related diseases," she said.

Also, it has been scientifically proved that the so-called "low tar" cigarette in fact harms smokers' health as much as regular cigarettes, Wu added.

China now has more than 300 million smokers, and about 1.2 million die each year from tobacco-related diseases, statistics from the National Health and Family Planning Commission show.