China's plywood production grew rapidly over the past 15 years from around 9 Mm³ yr^-1 in the mid 1990s to over 55 M m³ yr^-1 by 2011. Associated with this has been a proliferation of small-scale eucalypt veneer mills processing young (≤ 5 yrs) small diameter logs (mostly ≤ 12 cm small end diameter); by 2011 there were over 5000 such mills in China with a collective capacity to process well over 15.0 M m³ yr^-1 of logs. We review key characteristics of this eucalypt veneer industry with special focus on three key regions for eucalypt veneer production in China. Factors that have spurred and facilitated the rapid growth of this industry are reviewed along with future challenges likely to emerge for China's eucalypt veneer industry.