The leaders of the state monopoly of tobacco, which also acts as a growth regulator of cigarette advertising industry, like any other state-dominated areas, such as steel and telecommunications.
Wife C, People’s Army singer Peng Liyuan, served as the “Anti-smoking ambassador” along with basketball star Yao Ming, the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control.
“In doing so, it can help to get popular support and political capital to her husband to consolidate their power,” Lee said in the report. He said as Cu and Li Keqiang quit smoking “a couple years ago,” and 20 percent of the 25 parties - Politburo people still smoke.
Anti-tobacco activists have won in China. In 2005, China ratified the World Health Organization initiative to reduce tobacco production and consumption, and the Minister of Health Chen Zhu was recognized by WHO in July for his fight against tobacco.
China, which, according to the report has a quarter of smokers in the world, seeks to ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, and raise taxes on production and prices, the Ministry of Health said in August. The country is seeking to reduce the level of smoking among men and 40 percent in 2020 from 57 percent in 2002, the ministry said.
Those efforts are often stymied by the China National Tobacco, which skirts the ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship through charity, according to anti-smoking activists. It funds schools across the country, including the Sichuan Tobacco Hope Primary School, Xinhua news agency reported last year.
Devastating crisis
“Chinese authorities have been slow to recognize this more devastating public health crisis,” the report said Lee. “Their indecision effectively
Reduces tobacco production and consumption depends mainly on the fact that the tobacco industry is one of the largest sources of tax revenue for the Chinese government.”
Li Keming, who worked in the tobacco industry for three decades, has access to the top officials when he travels across China, that it is “very unusual from the point of view of Chinese bureaucratic hierarchy and protocol,” Lee wrote. One reason may be that local officials want to “curry favor with Li Keqiang,” he said.
Li Keqiang said health ministry officials privately that efforts on tobacco control can not be real, because the contribution of industry to the economy, the report said, referring to a conversation between Cheng Li and unknown health authorities in 2011.
Zhejiang Visit
Li Keming visited coastal Zhejiang province in July, when he met Communist Party Secretary Zhao Hongzhu and other officials “exchange views on the development of tobacco in Zhejiang Brooking’s Li said in an interview that he hopes, Li Keming “will be sensitive enough to volunteer to move to another place, another industry.”
“Chinese leaders in the future have to be sensitive to this, it is in their interest,” he said.
Transferring Li Keming of the tobacco industry can make its big brother less vulnerable to political attacks from opponents critical of his failure to curb tobacco more effective in the control of public health since 2008, the report said.
“While the tobacco industry - formidable self-interest groups - may cause some political support Li Keqiang, his family ties to the industry could be ammunition for his political opponents,” Lee wrote.
The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, who provided information for the report is a partner in the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, funded Philanthropies Bloomberg. Bloomberg Philanthropies created New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.
