Tobacco control in China and the road to Healthy China 2030

Healthy China 2030 aims to reduce the adult smoking rate from 27.7% in 2015 to 20% by 2030. Achieving this goal requires a review of the tobacco control measures introduced in China to date, the gaps that remain and the opportunities ahead. In 2008, the World Health Organization introduced six measures to reduce demand for tobacco called MPOWER. The progress China has made in implementing these measure varies: 1) monitor tobacco use and prevention policies. The surveillance on tobacco use has been rigorous, but the monitoring and evaluation of tobacco control policies needs to be strengthened; 2) protect people from tobacco use: pushes for national tobacco control legislation have stalled, but 18 subnational legislations have passed; 3) offer help to quit tobacco use. The accessibility and quality of cessation services needs to be improved; 4) warn about the dangers of tobacco. While there are no pictorial health warnings, tobacco control advocates have launched a series of anti-smoking media campaigns to inform the public; 5) enforce bans on tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship. Legal loop-holes and poor enforcement remain challenges; 6) raise taxes on tobacco: cigarettes in China are relatively cheap and increasingly affordable, which demonstrates the need for further tobacco tax increases indexed to inflation and income. China maintains a tobacco monopoly that interferes with tobacco control efforts and fails to regulate tobacco products from the public health perspective. Effective MPOWER measures, which depend upon the removal of tobacco industry interference from policymaking, are key to achieving the goal set by Healthy China 2030.