China is the world’s largest tobacco producer and tobacco consumer. It is home to one quarter of the world’s smokers and they consume a third of the world’s cigarettes.
In China there are 350 million smokers, about three times the number of smokers in the United States, or more than the entire population of the United States. Chinese smokers smoke an average of 15.8 cigarettes a day, which works out to more than 2 trillion cigarettes a year. Smoking kills 1.2 million Chinese a year. Even so 50 percent of Chinese doctors smoke.
Smoking is very much part of Chinese culture. Many Chinese like to smoke not only after a meal but during a meal. Expensive cigarette brands like Panda and Zhonghua are commonly given as presents to bosses and parents and are offered as a welcoming gesture to house guests. Some brands link themselves to good causes. A message on packs of Zhongnanhai brand cigarettes reads: “For each pack you consume, you are devoting your part to the charity Hope Project.”
On a per capita basis smoking is lower than other places in teh developed world. Per capita cigarette consumption in China is 1,791 cigarette per year, compared to 2,350 in the United States, 2770 in Japan, and 2,058 in France. Average cigarette consumption per person per year in China rose from 739 in 1970 to 1,290 in 1980 to 1,900 in 1990.
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