But, like the country's broader anti-smoking campaign, the Hangzhou
initiative then lost momentum. Instead of blanket bans on smoking in
public indoor spaces, the city revised its regulations to allow
smoking in designated areas in train or bus stations, as well as in
bars or karaoke clubs.
Opposition to the tougher rules, according to a top national tobacco
control official, was led by China National Tobacco Corp, the state
monopoly.
The company has reported rising sales over the last year, which
anti-tobacco campaigners say has helped to stall earlier successes
in the national anti-smoking campaign.
The official declined to be named, citing a lack of approval to
speak to the media.
"When it comes to the tobacco industry's obstruction and
interference in implementing specific tobacco control articles,
China has a serious problem," Yang Gonghuan, the former head of
tobacco control at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and
Prevention, said during a recent launch event for her book, "Tobacco
Control in China."
In the book, Yang details what she characterizes as China Tobacco's
efforts to thwart control measures by interfering with
policy-making, spreading "false science" about the safety of low-tar
cigarettes, promoting a smoking culture and criticizing anti-tobacco
advocates for working with foreign organizations.
The company did not respond to faxes and phone calls seeking
comment.
In official statements, China Tobacco says it is trying to improve
public health by fulfilling tobacco control obligations and working
to decrease things like tar in cigarettes.
China Tobacco is huge, powerful and opaque.
Selling 98 percent of the cigarettes in China under brands such as
Red Pagoda Mountain and Double Happiness, the unlisted company is
the world's biggest cigarette-maker by volume, generating revenue
last year of 1.1 trillion yuan ($172 billion).
It accounts for roughly 7 to 11 percent of China's taxes.
EARLY PROGRESS
In 2015, after China rolled out measures under the World Health
Organization's tobacco control convention, including a tax hike,
health warnings on cigarette packets, advertising curbs, and public
smoking bans, tobacco sales dropped for the first time since 2000.
That trend continued into 2016.
In Beijing, tobacco sales dropped 8 percent in 2016 after smoking
was banned in public places in July 2015, according to state media.
"When they saw the statistics, China Tobacco started to fight the
policy at all costs," the tobacco control official said.
In 2017, China Tobacco sold 0.8 percent more cigarettes than the
year before; in the first three months of 2018, sales rose 4.15
percent by volume, according to official data.
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CHEAP SMOKES
China produces and consumes the most tobacco of any country: over
300 million Chinese smoke, including more than half of all adult
men, according to Yang.
Social acceptance of smoking in China, where cigarettes are often
given as gifts at weddings or business gatherings, combined with low
awareness of the associated health risks, means demand remains high
despite 1 million tobacco-related deaths each year, according to her
book.
Cigarettes are also cheap, even as other goods have become more
expensive.
The affordability of average-priced brands, about 13 yuan per pack,
and for cheaper brands, as little as 3 yuan, halved between 2001 and
2016, when taking into account inflation and rising income levels,
according to research by Zheng Rong at the University of
International Business and Economics in Beijing.
Illegal online sale of cigarettes via food delivery platforms,
arcade games with cigarettes as prizes and thin cigarettes targeting
female smokers have also fueled sales in recent years, according to
an article by Zheng Pinpin, a public health researcher at Fudan
Univesity in Shanghai.
'FIREWALL' HOPES
In March, China's parliament announced a reshuffle of the body in
charge of implementing the WHO measures, putting the National Health
Commission in the lead, which sparked hope among tobacco control
advocates that the industry would be cut out of regulation.
"One would like to see, such as in Thailand, a process where a
firewall is built between the concerns of the industry and its
interests and any policymaking," Gauden Galea, the WHO's China
representative, told Reuters.
Yet, anti-smoking advocates worry that heavy reliance on tobacco tax
revenue undermines political will to curb smoking.
An increase in the wholesale tax from 5 percent to 11 percent in
2015 is largely credited with the 2.3 and 5.6 percent drops in
cigarette sales volumes in 2015 and 2016, respectively.
But Hu Teh-wei, an expert on China's tobacco industry at the
University of California, Berkeley, said that impact had now been
blunted and that significant tax hikes were needed to seriously
deter smokers, a prospect he said was not currently under
consideration in China.
(Reporting by Christian Shepherd; Editing by Tony Munroe and Philip
McClellan)
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