CHINA IS introducing new directives to limit the portrayal of smoking on screen as part of a broader effort to restrict tobacco-use in a country which makes and consumes more cigarettes than any other nation.
The order came down from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. It orders film-makers to only show smoking when necessary for artistic reasons and to minimise plots involving tobacco.
The rules say that people under 18 cannot be shown smoking or buying cigarettes. Moreover, characters may not smoke in public buildings or other places where smoking is banned.
Actors, producers and directors are being encouraged to exclude smoking from their movies because it doesn’t fit with the official position.
China has been making some efforts to restrict smoking in recent years, including banning tobacco advertising and sponsorship of major sporting events, although bars and restaurants are routinely cloaked in smoke.
Efforts were made a couple of years back to prevent top actor Huang Xiaoming from smoking too much in the popular TV show The Bund, although his defence was that he was merely giving an accurate impression of a 1930s Shanghai gangster.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of smoking in Chinese public life. Meeting rooms are lined with armchairs covered with anti-macassars and each with their own ashtray, often an elaborate 1970s-style construction reminding you of how smoking used to be central to Chinese political life.
One of the top brands is named after Zhongnanhai, the central section of Beijing where the Communist leadership lives.
China has failed to introduce a national law to prohibit smoking in indoor public places and cigarettes remain incredibly cheap.
The China National Tobacco Corporation, the state-run cash cow that holds an effective monopoly on the industry, paid €56 billion in taxes to the Chinese government in 2009.
It produced 2.3 trillion cigarettes.
More than 300 million Chinese adults smoke and some 60 million people are employed in the tobacco industry. However, the World Lung Foundation estimates a million people will die from tobacco-related illness in China this year, a costly toll that’s expected to double by 2020.
There are fears that the problem could be more widespread. More women in Beijing have taken up smoking in the past 10 years even though the overall rate is declining.
There are currently 50 million teenage smokers in China.