China is stepping up its efforts to present a cleaner image when August's Olympics begin, writes Clifford Coonanin Beijing
THERE MAY be lingering concerns about the air quality in the Chinese capital before the Olympic Games, but at least athletes can be sure of a smoke-free environment during the event after officials in Beijing introduced a ban on smoking in public areas.
China is the world's most enthusiastic smoking nation, home to one in three of the world's smokers. But since May Day, smokers will be put out on the street as part of a campaign to improve the urban environment ahead of the Olympics.
At times it seems like a national pastime - friendly farmers offer cigarettes to visitors before saying hello, packets of cigarettes are given out as gifts at funerals and weddings and no Chinese train journey is complete without multiple proffering of cigarettes across the carriage.
Under the rules, there is absolutely no smoking in schools, hospitals and government offices, as well as at all 37 Olympic sites. Hotels, restaurants and bars face a partial ban, with smoking and no-smoking areas.
The rules expand restrictions first introduced in 1995 to include health clubs, museums, ancient temples and government offices.
On the face of it, the penalties look slight. Individual violators will be fined 90 cent, while companies and institutions that violate the ban face fines of €90-€450. Just 2,000 inspectors will enforce it, while 60,000 officials have been assigned to educate people about the dangers of smoking.
However, goodwill for projects relating to the Olympics seems boundless and Beijingers have readily embraced other measures introduced to improve public behaviour.
Last year, security guards took matters into their own hands, using pipes to beat up builders who were having a cigarette break from their work building the Olympic Stadium, contravening a ban on smoking at Olympic construction sites.
The State Tobacco Monopoly Administration reckons one in four of the country's 1.3 billion people smoke, and the biggest rise in smokers has been among women. There are 50 million teenage smokers in China.
The health ministry says one million Chinese die of smoking-related illnesses every year. The World Health Organisation estimates this could rise to 2.2 million annually by 2020 if smoking rates remain unchanged.
Diseases associated with passive smoking kill 100,000 Chinese annually while more than half a billion suffer from the smoke exhaled from cigarettes.
With these kinds of shocking statistics, the Beijing government is waking up to the dangers of smoking, particularly the strain it puts on an already over-stretched health service.
Earlier this year the government announced plans to set up a national network of anti-smoking clinics. The aim is to set up at least one outpatient facility in each province, where smokers would be offered a combination of medical and psychological treatment.
One of the first steps is to gather reliable information about smoking in China and in February the government announced a survey of smoking habits among key sectors, including doctors and teachers, in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.
Despite the alarming health statistics, implementing a ban has come in the face of strong political opposition - the powerful tobacco lobby has argued that stamping out smoking threatens stability. Tobacco industry representative Zhang Baozhen last year pointed out how the old Soviet Union had riots when cigarettes were not available, and said widening a smoking ban could lead to something similar.
Ever more restricted in how they sell cigarettes elsewhere in the world, multinational companies are looking to China for growth.
Restaurateurs are also unhappy. State media reports how Beijing's first smoking-free restaurant, Meizhou Dongpo, saw fewer customers after it enforced a smoking ban in October.
And there are strong fiscal reasons for keeping ashtrays brimming. Tax revenues from cigarettes pour €20 billion a year into government coffers in Beijing, and the tobacco industry employs 60 million people.
The newly expanded ban on smoking in the Chinese capital is only partial in the burgeoning night club and eatery scene in Beijing, but will hopefully make a difference. Waking up after a night out in Beijing, your hair and clothes smell like an ashtray full of Zhongnanhai butts.
And a group of doctors sparking up cigarettes outside the cancer ward in a Beijing hospital is still one of the more remarkable sights I've seen, even in a country of 350 million smokers.
Every meeting room in China is lined with armchairs covered with antimacassars, each with their own ashtray, often elaborate 1970s-style - reminding you of how smoking used to be central to public life here.
This month's expanded ban is the latest initiative aimed at improving public behaviour before the Olympics, including campaigns against spitting, littering and queue-jumping.
There has also been a campaign to stop people smoking on screen. Actor Huang Xiaoming was criticised for smoking too much in the popular TV show The Bund, although critics conceded he looked convincing as a 1930s Shanghai gangster.
"Inspection organs [bodies] at all levels should pay more attention to the excessive use of smoking scenes in movies and teleplays," said China's media watchdog, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.