China is the world's largest producer and consumer of tobacco. It grows a third of the world's tobacco crop and manufactures a third of its cigarettes.
China is also home to some 320 million smokers — about a third of the world's total — and suffers around one million tobacco-related deaths per year. That's one in four of all such deaths worldwide.
China had not previously made tobacco control a high priority. But that has changed. A milestone came in 2003 when China signed the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). This international treaty aims to reduce global demand for tobacco products by encouraging countries such as China to adopt the sorts of anti-smoking measures now commonplace in developed countries. Having ratified the FCTC in October 2005 China will participate as a full member at meetings of signatories in 2006 and beyond.
Political awareness of the scale of the health burden has been rising and the China of today is showing much more interest in adopting and implementing anti-smoking measures. The goal at WHO is to do all it can to support this process.
:: Tobacco Free Initiative - Tobacco Control Directory
:: Fact sheet on pictorial health warnings
:: World No Tobacco Day 2010
:: Photoessay: 10 Facts on Tobacco and Gender in China
:: WNTD Posters
:: Shanghai Expo Exhibit
- Press release
- Fact sheet
- Exhibit panels
:: GATS factsheet-1 factsheet-2
:: A Guide to Tobacco Free Mega Events (English version) (Chinese Version)
:: Bloomberg philanthropies applauds China's next steps against tobacco