Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a derog. term for a Chinese man.

1850		Daily Alta Calif. (S.F.) 26 Aug. in McLeod Pigtails and Gold Dust (1947) n.p.: All the ‘China boys’ are to be assembled and walk in procession. [Ibid.] 30 Aug.: The ‘China Boys’ wish to thank you for the kind mark of attention you bestowed upon them.
1894		M.H. Foote Coeur d’Alene 128: Where is that Chinaboy?
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 185: One day he came in with a scared-looking China boy about twenty years old.
1936		I. Jones [bk title] China Boy.
1967		M. Braly On the Yard (2002) 158: Wong smiled thinly [...] ‘And you would expose this poor Chinaboy?’.

(US) false teeth.

1953		W. Gresham Monster Midway (1954) 223: Stunt drivers all seem to suffer from a common mishap—getting their front teeth banged out. Most of them wear ‘china clippers’.
1973		letter in Cyberstory (2002) 🌐 Certainly can understand your consternation as regards to the ‘china clippers’, which indeed, are necessary evils [...] My personal reaction is simply this – I have never really regretted having had my teeth out.

see John Chinaman n.

(US) a cheap Chinese restaurant.

1942

Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.

see separate entry.

1. heroin, esp. when of above-average strength.

1969		R.R. Lingeman Drugs from A to Z (1970).
1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).
1989		Lou Reed ‘Hold On’ 🎵 on N.Y. [album] He shot up some China white and nodded out at the wheel.
1993		T. Jones Pugilist at Rest 180: Was methadone the ultimate or were there bigger guns? Street heroin? She’d have to put on her wig and go out and score China White.
1999		Africa News Service 29 Nov. 🌐 When he got back to Nairobi, he [...] found that a new strain of heroin called China White had just found its way into Kenya.
1999		R.G. Barrett Wind & Monkey (2013) [ebook] ‘I also know where there’s twenty kilograms of heroin. Pure China white’.
c.2003		Dalton Vrij ‘Tying Off’ on Inter-zone.org 🌐 Of course china white, or the strong grey dope he had scored in Istambul [sic] had way more legs, as well as, especially the china white, a more refined and elegant high.
2010		Codella and Bennett Alphaville (2011) 189: Chinese white heroin was so strong and pure.
2010		C. Hiaasen Star Island (2011) 45: Dude, I was totally baked on China white.
2012		R. Milward Kimberly’s Capital Punishment (2023) 29: China White [...] the swankiest club ever named after smack.

2. cocaine.

1983

Grandmaster & Melle Mel ‘White Lines’ 🎵 I got China White, Mother of Pearl, Ivory Flake - what you need?

3. fentanyl, a powerful synthetic narcotic.

1997		Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 156: Other talk about how he’d been firing some of that China White, the synthetic morphine substitute that killed about a dozen people [...] last summer.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 5: China White — Heroin.

(US) an expert (with no specific geographical linkage).

1970

‘Troy Conway’ Cunning Linguist (1973) 79: After all, when a sex-starved young man presses an old China hand for the juicy details, it would be more than cruel and less than kind to omit certain specifics.