Compiled by Caijing staff

From Caijing Magazine

While a global smoking “death clock” ominously ticked nearby, delegates at a World Health Organization conference on tobacco control suddenly broke the gloom with applause for the Chinese delegation.

The Chinese had just changed their position at a November conference by giving support to a key section of the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) called Article 5.3. At issue was a proposal that participating nations bar all business links between the tobacco industry and government.

China, where the government controls a tobacco monopoly that serves the world’s largest population of smokers, had earlier argued against provisions of Article 5.3, calling it impossible for any country with a state-owned tobacco industry.

One Chinese delegate at the conference in Durban, South Africa – where representatives from 130 nations including China gathered for FCTC negotiations – told Caijing the Chinese delegation had actually supported some provisions from the start, yet wanted other countries to accept the differences between their policies and China’s.

In any event, China’s outright support for Article 5.3 came as a surprise at the conference, where the death clock registered an ever-increasing number of smoking-related fatalities around the world. According to the clock, more than 40 million people have died from tobacco since WHO first drafted FCTC in 1999.

Fox in the Chicken Coop

However, China’s contribution to the conference talks did not signal a complete victory for tobacco opponents.

One reason was that the Chinese delegation included officials who worked for both the government’s State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) and China National Tobacco Corp., the state-run monopoly. Their appearance made delegates from other countries uneasy.

Indeed, a legal consultant for the South African Ministry of Health in Africa, Patricia Lambert, said having two tobacco company employees was like inviting a fox into a chicken coop.

Leading China’s 17 delegates was Gao Yanmin, deputy director of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Others came from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health, and the governments of Hong Kong and Macau. They joined about 600 representatives of governments and health agencies from around the world.

At times during the negotiations, the fox reared its head. For example, at one point the Chinese delegation objected to a proposal for using large, bold pictures with health warnings on cigarette packets.

FCTC signatories are supposed to stamp warnings labels on packets that are big, impressive and clear – and without any misleading descriptions, such as claims that the cigarettes inside are “low tar.” Chinese delegates said they did not oppose these kinds of warnings, but argued they could not be used in China. They said it would be an insult and disrespectful to the Chinese if pictures that now adorn Chinese tobacco packets – scenes of interesting places that embody Chinese history and culture – were replaced with ugly pictures designed to warn smokers.

On the other hand, STMA has taken steps aimed at bolstering health warnings. Several months ago, for example, the administration issued new tobacco package design rules that required moving the warning message “Smoking is Harmful to Health” to the front of packets from sides. The warnings also grew to cover 30 percent of each packet’s face.

Wu Yiqun, deputy director of the Chinese government’s Health Development and Research Center, who also represented China’s non-government smoking-control organizations at the conference, brought several new tobacco packages to Durban. But Wu did not brag. Rather, he called the new warnings were neither obvious nor impressive.

Tobacco packets sold outside China contain a variety of pictures and warning messages, such as “Danger: Smoking Causes Cancer” and “Are You Pregnant? Are You Breastfeeding? Smoking Will Harm Your Children.”

A psychology professor at the University of Waterloo, Geoffery Fong, told Caijing that worldwide studies have shown that pictures on cigarette packets can have greater impact than words.

Tobacco products exported from China to other countries include warning pictures in step with local laws. These include pictures of rotting mouths and yellow teeth. Chinese delegates said they did not object to these warnings for overseas markets, but they rejected the technique for China.

Frustrated smoking opponents then awarded the Chinese delegates with a health “award” – an ash tray.

Japan, which also has a state-owned tobacco industry, joined China in opposing the picture rule.

Charity Paradox

Another paradox for China’s tobacco control initiative emerged December 2, after the conference ended, when STMA won the 2008 China Charity Prize awarded by China National Tobacco. The government agency was picked for the prize over 140, mainly charitable enterprises – including several other tobacco enterprises.

The award may have clashed with FCTC’s Article 13, which restricts the involvement of tobacco companies in image-boosting charity work and so-called “social responsibility” initiatives.

Chinese delegates and international law experts told Caijing that the FCTC rules are not mandatory for China. Lu Song, an international law professor at China Foreign Affairs University, noted that the articles approved in Durban are not laws and include no enforcement mechanism.