China is bucking the trend of the rest of the world where smoking is falling. Sales reached 2.44 trillion in 2023. In 2022, smokers represented 24.1 per cent of the adult population, a figure well above the world average of 17 per cent. For experts, countrywide legislation is needed to control tobacco.

Beijing (AsiaNews) – Contrary to the rest of the world, the Chinese remain the greatest tobacco consumers in the world, while the country can claim to be the largest producer, with cigarette sales climbing in recent years.

In some regions, attempts to limit smoking, such as bans on indoor smoking and tax increases, have lapsed in recent times due to official concerns about their negative impact on the economy.

After a decline between 2014 and 2016, when several major Chinese cities introduced strict indoor smoking bans, cigarette sales have jumped over the past five years.

The overall figure reached 2.44 trillion in 2023, this according to a report published in August by the Research Center for Health Development (RCHD), cited by Sixth Tone, a Chinese English-language online magazine.

According to the think tank’s deputy director Jiang Yuan, one of the factors that have led to the increase in cigarette consumption in China is the popularity of so-called slim cigarettes among younger smokers, thanks to their fashionable design and the misperception that they are less harmful than regular cigarettes.

Marketing plays a big role in their appeal, giving them a more sophisticated image and stylish look.

“Some tobacco companies specifically produce shorter cigarettes, for example, for high-speed train passengers who can’t take more than a few puffs before discarding them,” Jiang told Sixth Tone. Smokers on trains take advantage of brief platform stops to light a cigarette.

However, health experts note that these cigarettes are not safer than other tobacco products; each slim cigarette is equivalent to a third or half of a traditional cigarette.

The rise of such cigarettes could explain why total sales have increased, while the national smoking rate has declined slightly.

According to official statistics, the figure for adult smokers in China fell from 26.6 per cent in 2018 to 24.1 per cent in 2022, still well above the global figure of 17 per cent in 2021.

China has an official goal of reducing the prevalence of adult smokers to 20 per cent by 2030. Achieving this goal is an almost impossible challenge without policy changes.

Jiang attributes the gap between Chinese and global cigarette consumption in part to the growth of the e-cigarette industry outside China.

While this trend is developing around the world, strict regulations are in place in China, including a 2022 ban on all non-tobacco-flavoured vapes.

Finally, anti-smoking policies under consideration by Beijing will have to focus on men; official data indicate that more than half of men in China smoked in 2018 against about 2 per cent for women.

For experts, the importance of cigarette taxes for state revenues and the influence of the tobacco and hospitality industries have slowed the pace of anti-smoking policies in China, despite rising health costs.

About a decade ago, anti-smoking bylaws were gaining traction, with a ban on smoking in all indoor public places introduced in 2015 in Beijing, followed by Shanghai a year later.

However, the recent slowdown in the economy has made the authorities more cautious vis-à-vis the revenue-generating  industry, not least because tobacco companies are among the main generators of employment and revenue in the country.

Moreover, China still does not have nationwide anti-smoking legislation, after a bill drafted in 2014 to comply with a World Health Organisation (WHO) directive was not approved. As a result, China's anti-smoking legislation is primarily dependent on regional laws.

To deal with the problem, “It is urgent to accelerate nationwide tobacco control legislation,” said Wang Qingbin, a professor in the School of Law-Based Government at the China University of Political Science and Law, speaking to Sixth Tone.

• china
• beijing
• shanghai
• smoking
• cigarettes
• bans
• revenues
• consumption
• world health organisation
• who