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Jenny Tang

Prof. Broadbent

Writing 39C / AP final

30 May 2018

An easy and effective solution for smoking in China

Video about China’s smoking culture:

Source: Youtube Video by clearasvodka https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=KDx3D6Krz0g&t=2s

Introduction:

Most my family members are non-smokers. My mom is a civil engineer and she is one of

the few women in her company. Her boss is very fancy about smoking and likes a particular
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luxury brand of cigarettes which cost 100 RMB, approximately 16 dollars per pack, comparing

to others which only cost 12 cents per pack. In China’s society rules, if the leaders smoke, people

cannot say “no”. Since the majority population in her company are man that are mostly smokers,

her office always has a bad smelling of cigarettes. My mom, herself, complained a lot and was

affected by the terrible air every day. As a result, she has a chronic pneumonia which affect her

health and need to take x-rays twice per year. Because her leader loves smoking, there are some

other engineers who want to ingratiate their boss to give him cigarettes as gifts. This not only

happen in my mom’s office, but also a prevalent scene in today’s China. Cigarettes are presented

as communication tools which people use them to network. According to Zhenfeng Pan of the

University of Louisville concluded: "In China, smoking serves an important social function: the

connection builder. When people meet each other, it is a custom for everyone to offer cigarettes

to signal respect and hospitality. Among known friends or acquaintances, cigarette offering is

equally prevalent and important, and serves the function of reinforcing friendships or

relationships. (Peter)” Nowadays, Chinese, especially men, have a much higher smoking rate

than any other country in the rest of the world. The second-hand smoke also has an impact on

other non-smokers’ health, causing a national health crisis. According to an article published on

Reviews on Environmental Health, “If 30% of these smokers were to die of smoke-related

diseases in the next 20 years, the impact from the more than 90 million premature deaths could

be damaging to China. In addition, numerous non-smokers also experience health problems from

exposure to environmental tobacco smoke.” Cigarettes are not only important tools for society,

but also a huge source for government revenues. The China National Tobacco Corporation, a

government-control company, have a monopoly on China’s Tobacco market. Their incomes

produce a 7% to 10% government revenue according to the political mapping of China's tobacco
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industry and anti-smoking campaign. The government are not willing to give up such a great

profit.

Source: Sohu.com

Obstacles:

Because 7%-10% of government revenues are now coming from the China Tobacco.

Corporation, the government will not give up such benefits. Some provinces, like Yunan, highly

rely on the tobacco market, “Moreover, tobacco is seen as key to economic growth in the more

remote, poorer sections of the country, such as Yunnan province, whose government depends on

tobacco sales for more than 50% of its revenues.” The revenues that the Tobacco created can be

used for economic and education development in China. China has the world largest
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impoverished population and there are still some undeveloped areas which people have limited

accesses to clean water and food. People who live these remote areas cannot pay their children to

school. The government use their moneys to provide free education to poor students. Since the

population is large, it is a great investment. According to China Daily, “China spent nearly 3.9

trillion yuan ($565.6 billion) on education in 2016, an increase of 7.57 percent from 2015,

according to preliminary statistics released by the Ministry of Education on Wednesday.” As

Wang Hong stated in Salud publica de Mexico, “As long as the tobacco industry continues to be

significant in overall economic development, and as long as the government continues to play a

significant role in tobacco production, the debate between tobacco production and tobacco

control will continue.” The situation becomes far more serious, when cigarettes even can serve as

communication tools that the society cannot maintain without them. For example, in China, there

are things called “grey area”, which means laws sometimes are ineffective. Unlike U.S, Chinese

universities are not allowed visitors and strangers to come in for the students’ safety. Students

need to show their student ID when they need to enter to the school. However, there are still

some top universities which are really famous and attract parents and perspective students. When

they want to visit, they give a pack of cigarettes to the entrance guards. In most cases, the guards

will let them in. Not only perspective parents and students, current students are not allowed to go

outside when they are in school also for safety reasons, mostly in high schools and secondary

schools. The students themselves even bring cigarettes to send to the guards and the guards will

let them go outside for a while or get some takeaways. In Chinese society, if a person receives

the cigarettes, this person need to do something for whom give the cigarettes. It’s a manner and

cannot easily be broken. The society needs to find alternative ways to solve the problem, which

should be healthy and reasonable. At last, people don’t realize the harmful effects at all. In
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Chinese movies, the top leaders will always hold cigarettes on their hand to show their leader

spirits, educating those who are still teenagers. They will consider those smoking scenes as

“cool”, “influential”. Their textbooks indeed tell them smoking affect health and will cause lung

cancers but these words seem ridiculous comparing to those smoking shots in films. Those who

are addicted to smoking since they are teenagers will not quit smoking unless their own live are

threatened. The normal “intimidating” things cannot let them quit. They tend to believe some

jokes on the internet than their doctors or teacher’s words. In Chinese social media Weibo, which

is similar to Twitter, a post earned thousands of “likes” says: “Ling Biao, who doesn’t smoke and

drink, live only 63 years old; Mao Zedong, who smoke but doesn’t drink, live 83 years old; Deng

Xiaoping, who smoke and drink, live 93 years old; Zhang Xueliang, who smoke, drink and

prostitutes, live 103 years old. Those who don’t smoke and drink should learn from the history!”

Chinese famous actor Tony Leung Chiu

Wai.

Previous Solutions in China:

Entering 2000, China realized that their smoking population are too high and need to be

control. Smoking has surprisingly increase the rate of heart attack, lung cancer in China. In,

2005, China decide to join in WHO Framework convention on Tobacco control,

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which means this convention has legal

effects in mainland. Beijing, the capital of China, set the law that all the public areas should be

smoke-free at 2011. Also, at the same year, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio,

Film and Television set the notification that all the movies and shows should restrict the uses of

smoking scenes and cigarettes advertisements. But does these regulations, notifications work?

There are still a lot of smokers on Beijing’s Street today and teenagers can still buy cigarettes at

grocery stores. They use the word, “restrict” instead of “ban”, which is useless and has no effect.

It is only a notification, instead of a real law or regulation, and “restrict” means there can still

have some smoking scenes. “Ban” means that no cigarettes scenes can be shown in the movies.

Since it doesn’t have the lawful effects and use vague words, at the end of 2012, according to a

survey conducted by China Daily, there are still 50% of movies and TV shoes that have smoking

scenes. Even if it is a regulation, no one will obey because regulations take no lawful effects.

Only written no smoking scenes into law can control the conditions. Controlling by regulations

and policies won’t do well in China. But setting up a law isn’t an easy way. It needs a long time

from formulating to voting and will cause a strong debate because as I mentioned above, tobacco

industry still create 7% of the government revenues.

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Solutions in Other countries:

Looking at solutions in other countries can help us to build a better solution for China.

We can learn from their advantages or avoid their drawbacks. For example, California levy a

heavy tax on Cigarettes and other tobacco products to reduce the smoking rate. According to the

California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, for cigarettes, the tax for one pack(20s) is

2.87 dollar and for other tobacco products, the tax is 62.87% of wholesale cost. However, does

this actually reduce the smoking rate? It has positive effects though, as mentioned by BMJ

Journals, “there was sufficient evidence of effectiveness of increased tobacco excise taxes and

prices in reducing overall tobacco consumption and prevalence of tobacco use and improvement

of public health, including by preventing initiation and uptake among young people, promoting

cessation among current users and lowering consumption among those who continue to use.”

However, first, people can addict to smoking. 2.87 dollars a pack does not affect people’s passion

to buy it. If a meal only cost 10-15 dollars, a 2.87 dollars tax on cigarettes doesn’t mean a lot.

Moreover, people tend to buy the cigarettes no matter how expensive they are. Lots of smokers

cannot live without cigarettes. These people who highly rely on cigarettes will still buy them

even if they are expensive or find alternative ways. As Patrick Peretti-Watel mentioned in his

paper, “Regarding smoking habits, poor smokers were heavier smokers, they were more

frequently tobacco-dependent, and they more frequently react to the cigarette price increase

by turning to cheaper or hand-rolled cigarettes.” Making cigarettes more expensive can only

increase their pressure and make their life even harder. For rich people who are smoking, they

don’t care such a “little” tax on tobacco. They can spend thousands of dollars in luxury stores

and neglect these small increases in prices. And also, they are willing to buy much more
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expensive one to show their positions especially in China. The higher tax on cigarettes only hurt

those who are poor. Poor people need to use the money that originally prepare for their family or

children’s tuition to buy cigarettes or are forced to give up this habit. But do the poor people not

have rights to smoke? Smoking problem can only be solved when people truly realize the

harmful effects that cigarettes bring and quit smoking by themselves.

My solution:

In my opinion, the best way to reduce smoking rate in China is to make the packs

of cigarettes “disgusting”. Disgusting does not mean that the producers only print “Smoking

affect health” on the packs, which China are currently doing this now. No one will care. Lots of

things can affect health. We all know that burgers fries and chips affect our health but we still eat

them. Smokers will never care the health issues tobacco brings until someday, their lives are

threatened by lung cancer or heart diseases. According to a report published on BMJ Journals,

“Relative to text-only warnings, pictorial warnings (1) attracted and held attention better; (2)

garnered stronger cognitive and emotional reactions; (3) elicited more negative pack attitudes

and negative smoking attitudes and (4) more effectively increased intentions to not start smoking

and to quit smoking.” Pictures are more shocking and unforgettable than texts. What kind of

pictures can we put on the packs to let the smokers feel their life are threatened? Malaysia is an

example. A research done by some scientists also reveal that: “Exposure to the pictorial warnings

resulted in increased awareness of the risks of smoking, stronger behavioral response to the

warnings and increased interest in quitting smoking. The new warnings in Malaysia will increase

smokers’ knowledge of the adverse health effects of smoking and have a positive effect on

interest in quitting.”
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The ugly pictures on the cigarettes pack in Malaysia can not only encourage people to quit

smoking but also educate people that smoking really affect health and prevent more people from

addicting to smoking. Nonsmokers see these pictures will feel that I never want my lungs and

throats look like that, which let them not join in smoking. It is a simple act because it doesn’t

require a lot of money and people. All the government need to do is to find pictures of unhealthy

lungs and throats and put them on the cigarettes’ packing. It can still bring huge effects, reducing

the smoking populations. Cigarettes in China are attractively packed so that can be used as gifts.
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“Panda” Cigarettes, which are considered expensive, are orange packed with two cute pandas.

Source: pandacigarettes

They are not only used in normal family setting, but also in some formal greetings. At last

decades, when the Chinese president Xiaoping Deng meet with former US Secretary of State 

Henry Kissinger, he will light up his favorite “Panda” cigarettes. These expensive and delicate

packing cigarettes are best gifts in China. During holidays, people will buy these tobacco

products send to their friends, families and even their children’s teachers. Chinese people are not

only relying on Chinese tobacco products, but also buy foreign cigarettes. Because foreign

cigarettes from Japan or Europe are more expensive than China, buying those expensive tobacco
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products can show closer relationships with others. In airports’ duty free shops across the world,

there are a lot of Chinese in the store to buy those “international cigarettes”. However, if we

make the packs of cigarettes disgusting, they cannot act as a social tool and used as gifts, which

will gradually decrease this bad social habit in China. Also, even if tax on cigarettes only hurt

those who are poor, a country should never let the cigarettes cheaper than water and food.

According to Los Angeles Times, “Cigarettes in China cost as little as 12 cents for a package of

20, but more desirable brands can cost a dollar or more.” The prices of cigarettes also let a large

number of teenagers afford the tobacco. When the teenagers cannot have their own minds and

make their own decisions, they will easily be confused by the movies and advertisements and

addicted to smoking in the future. They are also like imitating their parents’ actions and also

those former top leaders in China. The government can only raise the prices at least to let

teenagers hard to afford. These a little price increasing can also bring economic effects as they

will. They will be happy about the revenues that tax bring.

Cigarettes packing in China. Source: China Cigarettes Website

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Works Cited:

Au, William W., Daisy Su, and Jiang Yuan. "Cigarette smoking in China: public health, science,

and policy." Reviews on environmental health 27.1 (2012): 43-49.

Chaloupka, Frank J., Kurt Straif, and Maria E. Leon. "Effectiveness of tax and price policies in

tobacco control." Tobacco Control (2010): tc-2010.

Fathelrahman, Ahmed I., et al. "Impact of the new Malaysian cigarette pack warnings on

smokers’ awareness of health risks and interest in quitting smoking." International journal

of environmental research and public health 7.11 (2010): 4089-4099.

Leo, Peter. "In China, smoking's the big thing." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (2006).

Li, Cheng. The political mapping of China's tobacco industry and anti-smoking campaign. John

L. Thornton China Center at Brookings, 2012.

Noar, Seth M., et al. "Pictorial cigarette pack warnings: a meta-analysis of experimental

studies." Tobacco control(2015): tobaccocontrol-2014.

Peretti-Watel, Patrick, and Jean Constance. "“It’s all we got left”. Why poor smokers are less

sensitive to cigarette price increases." International journal of environmental research

and public health 6.2 (2009): 608-621.

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Wang, Hong. "Tobacco control in China: the dilemma between economic development and

health improvement." Salud publica de Mexico 48 (2006): s140-s147.

Wright, Alexi A., and Ingrid T. Katz. "Tobacco tightrope—balancing disease prevention and

economic development in China." New England Journal of Medicine 356.15 (2007): 1493-

1496.

Xinhua. “China increases education spending in 2016.” China Daily 2017.