China, the world’s largest tobacco producer and home to a third of all smokers, has issued a national ban on lighting up in hotels, restaurants and other indoor public spaces, the Health Ministry said on Thursday.
The rules, which take effect on May 1 and spell out education provisions about the dangers of tobacco, include restrictions on cigarette vending machines and on outdoor smoking that affects pedestrians.
But there are considerable loopholes. The rules do not cover factories, offices or government workplaces, and, more important, they lack specific penalty guidelines. That detail has prompted shrugs among devoted smokers, many of whom have long since learned to ignore the no-smoking signs in hospital waiting areas, gymnasium locker rooms and elevators.
“Chinese people, including most government officials, are just too in love with their cigarettes to pay attention to such a law,” said Liu Bailing, 28, a bank employee dining beneath a cumulus cloud of smoke at a restaurant here on Thursday evening.
Ms. Liu’s complaint was not without reason. In the nearly three years since Beijing required restaurants and bars to provide nonsmoking sections, most smokers have continued to puff away with abandon.
While acknowledging the challenges of enforcing the new ban, antismoking advocates hailed the measure as a first step to weaning the nation off tobacco, which health officials say kills more than 1.2 million Chinese a year. China has among the world’s highest smoking rates, with nearly one-third of all adults lighting up. (In the United States, about 21 percent of adults were smokers as of 2008.)
“Even if it’s not stringently enforced in the beginning, having a law is an important place to start,” said Wu Yiqun, deputy director of the Think Tank Research Center for Health Development, a nongovernmental group in Beijing.
Two years ago, the authorities raised taxes on cigarettes, and last month the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued guidelines that seek to reduce the number of scenes that feature smoking in movies and television shows.
Still, it remains to be seen how effective the newest ban will be, and skeptics might be forgiven their doubts. The Communist Party, after all, has a monopoly on tobacco production, which provides roughly 7 percent of the government’s tax revenue.
