Experts Say Cigarette Warnings Should Be Bigger

There are about 300 million smokers in China – that's about the same number as the population of the United States. Each year over one million of them die because of their habit. To reduce these figures the Chinese government wants to enlarge warning signs on cigarette packets. But some say even more needs to be done. Dominic Swire has the report.

A health warning currently cover one third of all cigarette packets in China. The text is about two millimeters high and reads:

"Smoking is harmful to your health. Giving up smoking early is good for your health."

The government recently announced that from April 2012 this warning will double in size to four millimeters high. But some say this is not enough.

Professor Wu Yiqun is a Chinese anti-smoking campaigner for the Beijing-based Think Tank Research Centre for Health Development.

"We want to say smoking can cause cancer. We want to write down this kind of sentence. But they just very roughly say smoking can affect your health. So I think this is no big change, just enlarge the characters is useless."

Wu Yiqun says it's difficult for China to impose stricter measures because the China National Tobacco Corporation, which is the country's largest cigarette manufacturer, is a subsidiary of the country's tobacco regulatory authority. Wu Yiqun again.

The government and the companies are one body, two hands. This is the main problem. We've continued for years to ask them to change this structure. I think the national monopoly bureau can't combine with Chinese tobacco companies together because they're different, they should separate."

But even if larger, more visible warnings were used, some residents of Beijing question whether they would have any effect.

"If the warning made any difference, I wouldn't smoke."

"I buy cigarettes in Europe. The warning sign is big enough already. It makes no difference at all… It doesn't work for me - maybe for your friend or girlfriend, but not for me."

"Smokers are already addicted to tobacco. No matter what changes, they'll continue smoking."

China is not the only country in the world tackling the issue of smoking. The World Health Organisation says of all the people alive today, half a billion will eventually be killed by smoking. The problem for China, is that many of them will be Chinese.

For CRI, I'm Dominic Swire.