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It's dialectical
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2026
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These measures are a joke compared go most other developed nations, and clearly compromised at every level.
They had absolutely ridiculous rates of smoking until recently, still very high in older men; low public awareness of the harms of smoking (see that paper I linked) and until recently low rates of education; and high public approval of smoking.
Do you believe governments should force people to not do things they want to do? Or that governments should let people do what they want and promote education and safety?
Like are you saying they should be more authoritarian about it? They should let private companies operate peddling an addictive drug like most developed nations? They should use price signals to trap people in poverty for the crime of being addicted? They should ban it and create a black market and public resentment?
what do people actually want?
They monopolised it to prevent western companies profiting (the companies that got everyone addicted in the first place and suppressed findings of harm), ran education campaigns and banned it in healthcare settings starting back in like 2006. As opinion has shifted with increasing education it's been more heavily regulated.
This seems like good governance that respects peoples' choices while trying to limit harms to me.
It would be cool to see stuff like plain packaging laws like we have in Aus, although iirc only one other country has done that so it's a rare and remarkable success. However aus also has extremely steep sin taxes that poverty trap people (a pack of durries is about 30 usd iirc) and this has created a vibrant black market leading to daylight firebombing of rival gang tobacconists so like it has failed pretty bad otherwise. Also private companies dumped huge amounts of money into promoting vaping leading to a massive increase in nicotine use among the young, seems like a state monopoly would've been better.
Seriously what do you want them to do? Overrule preferences or do the slow thing of changing public opinion respectfully?
Edit: also specifically what measures? A ban on advertising, in schools, in healthcare facilities (difficult! Something like 60% of doctors smoke lol), public transport, offices, and the creation of smoke free public spaces is the same as aus/usa/France/uk etc I think, ban on ads and harm awareness ads seems comparable (they don't label packets with harm warnings like some countries I think, that could be improved), a ban on private companies is further than most countries, they allow them to be sold openly unlike some countries that require them behind the counter, age restrictions are either not a thing or not well enforced which is bad, they've comitted to using price signals which personally I think is dog shit but that's also in line with other countries, they rattified the WHO treaty on tobacco which is again in line with most.
I think all you can concretely point to is that they started late (v. common in the region, different attitudes to tobacco and poorer infrastructure/education/awareness of harms) and that penalties aren't super steep but personally I think fines and harsh punishment to drug addicted people is exceptionally cruel and other means should be looked at.
I'm not sure what the status if subsidy for smoking cessation aids is but it is an active area of research in Chinese medical universities and attracts reasonable amounts of funding.
China forces people all the time to not do the things they want to do, but when it comes to the cancer machine, oh we're all about personal freedom now. Gimme a break...
It's extremely clear how important the smoking funds are to the Chinese government which is why they're dragging their feet and doing the bare minimum to claim they try to stop it. Which is why rates of smoking are absurdly high.
So you're mad at the government for not being worse about freedom?
The aus government raised taxes on smokes for money while saying it was about protecting people till we got gang warfare, gonna criticise them as much too?
I'm calling bullshit on the hypocrisy of always defending whatever China is doing, flip/flopping between defending authoritarianism or freedom with no goddamn principles as long as one gets to do apologia for China. It displays that it's all about campism, rather than about principles.
I didn't know the only possible solution to the smoking epidemic is the one failed thing one state did. Fucking Greece was so bad about it to the point that it had whole-ass political parties solely about protecting smokers, and they still have done more progress than China.
Fact of the matter is, that China is dragging their feet and there's a reason for that, and the reason is $$$, like all other fucking capitalist countries. There's no reason for us to run interference when they're failing ffs.
Things are improving though and they're not making the same mistakes as other countries with nutty sin taxes that just grind people to dust and allowing capitalist shitbags to trample everyone while pretending like they're not incentivised to avoid regulations by tax money.
Idk if you've traveled Asia but everyone smokes. attitudes are wildly different. They're making progress without pissing everyone offx that's good.
I'll happily criticise the real garbage china is doing, like as they mechanise they are shifting arduous manufacturing to Thailand copying the same model as the west, but unlike China Thailand doesn't have the strong government and the population to do what china did and become a regional education powerhouse to free themselves from sweat shop slavery so it's just callously replicating colonialism.
Or how their cultural programs are pretty token in the face of defacto han supremicy and whenever ethinic minorities stand in the way of an infrastructure project suddenly they're not so important.
Or how in the special economic zones companies that are darlings are allowed to shit on worker's right like huwai and the 996 week.
Or how as they transition to a mature economy opportunities for the youth evaporate and they haven't found an answer and are suffering from the same soul crushing bullshit as Europe/anglosphere.
But they're making reasonable progress on smoking and bringing the people along without punitive measures for drug users. Tobacco use is ingrained culturally in a way that it hasn't been for over a century in Europe.
I think you severely underestimate how ingrained tobacco was ingrained in Europe as well. It's absolutely false to say Tombacco wasn't ingrained for a century. In the 80s everything smelled of smoke. Tobacco didn't start being phased out in Eu until well in the 1990, and speaking of my country, in the 2000s. Sorry but given what I've seen of China, they're dragging their feet, which can be easily seen from how easily they make bypassing the things that actually work without "making gang warfare", like putting proper warnings on their cigarettes boxes.
they have warnings on the boxes lol
Watch the video many people have linked you to already.
I read the article, I also looked up chinese cigarette warnings. They have warnings.
They're like the same as Icelands
The warnings in China are not nearly visually strong enough which as I said, it's just a way for China to say they're doing something without actually being disruptive.
FFS! The video actually shows you how ridiculously mild these warnings are
Sorry but at this point I'm just seeing too much fucking campist behaviour and I'm not going to engage anymore with that shit. You refuse to look at the evidence people have given to you in the most easily digestible form, in favor of running interference for a goddamn capitalist state.
Looking at the warnings is not looking at evidence? I'm not watching an hour long non verifiable video lol. Someone linked the article it's based on and it's not academic but sort of ok although doesn't actually cite much and I had to do a bunch of work to check various claims.
People should just link verifiable shit or refer to specific, fact checkable events and statistics. Youtube is just random people, it's magazine articles for the illiterate.
But whatever. No matter what they did you'd find some measure where they weren't doing your ideal thing and call it deficient. A criticism that could be leveled against any country. They're doing better then Vietnam, Indonesia, slightly worse than Thailand, they're better in women than Japan but worse for men. whatever. China bad I guess.
disengage
The 2024 Chinese CDC Tobacco survey findings:
And more interesting info in the full pdf:
The Findings PDF
Thanks for being less lazy than me.
My wife was involved in an international thingy about tobacco control and harm recently and when she came back with gifts of ciggies from the chinese delegation I had a double take so I looked into Chinese attitudes and anti smoking measures. It seemed wildly poor form to gift tobacco obviously.
It was very informative, and I came away from it thinking they were doing a reasonable job given the size of the state and the low reach of government authority into rural population/attitudes towards smoking in east and south east Asia.
The gift thing is that apparently tobacco is considered a respectful and universal gift, but also it probably allowed them to spruke/talk about their national monopoly which they were very proud of, and took perverse joy in ridiculing the state of Australian black markets pointing out that it was inevitable if prices kept rising and that Australia should nationalise tobacco.
I probably shouldn't be that frustrated that nobody knows much about the state of things, I didn't. I didn't have strong opinions on it though. So thanks for providing the quotes.
Culture clash will do that tobacco is still a huge part of Chinese tradition and life but it is changing with each year the rate of smoking decreasing as younger people are less and less interested. Basically none of the younger guys at my work smoke and smoking was never really big amongst women.
High quality (premium) cigarettes are THE gift especially for major events (usually weddings). 中华, 南京, 黄鹤楼, 芙蓉王 being some of the most popular brands. I would genuinely not believe someone if they said they went to a wedding or similar event in China and weren't offered/gifted at least one pack.
Edit: Other gifts are common too red packets, premium alcohol, fruit, premium tea and others but cigarettes are definitely one of the most common.
Yeah these were crazy, ornate glossy packaging, golden (possibly gold coated or gold leaf foil inside) they smelled amazing. I've been clean about 15 years and damned if I didn't want to light one up.
I don't think it was deliberately disrespectful, no more so than the way diplomatic gifts usually carry layers of meaning and assertions of superiority and independence.