Anti-smoking campaigners and health experts have outlined eight tactics they say the mainland's tobacco monopoly is using to undermine national efforts to curb the spread of the addictive product.
But they are fighting an uphill battle as the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, the government agency responsible for policy and enforcing regulations, such as warnings on packaging, controls the China National Tobacco Corporation, a state-owned monopoly and the largest single manufacturer of tobacco products in the world.
'China's tobacco industry has taken advantage of its integration with a government agency to interfere and counter efforts to honour China's commitment to the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control,' said Dr Yang Gonghuan, director of the National Office of Tobacco Control.
A report, released on Thursday by the Think Tank Research Centre for Health Development, the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control and Chinese Preventive Medicine Association, listed eight key tactics tobacco firms use to counter anti-smoking efforts.
For instance, companies refuse to incorporate an image into the warnings on cigarette packaging, and have undermined the drive to raise tobacco taxes and prices, misleading the public into thinking that cigarettes with less tar are less harmful.
The report also criticises the industry for downplaying the treaty's legal obligations, and whitewashing the health threat smoking and secondary smoking poses.