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Winston Churchill used to say: “If two people are smoking under a NO SMOKING sign, you fine them; if twenty people are smoking under a NO SMOKING sign, you ask them to move on; if two hundred people are smoking under a NO SMOKING sign, you remove the sign”.
China seems to be following Churchill’s advice: on the first of May, new regulations on smoking in public places came into effect, but the smokers, who here are 350 million, dictate the law and continue to smoke as before.
The Chinese National Office for Tobacco Control foresaw that smokers would probably not be afraid to light up their cigarettes wherever and whenever they wanted; the authorities expected that before seeing any results, decades would pass and massive sensitization campaigns would be needed. Yet in China laws are generally enforced with great vigor and convictions are common; for crimes like corruption, a person can be executed.
It is interesting to compare China to Bhutan, a small Himalayan state, which in 2011 applied a new law on tobacco consumption: anyone who smokes is condemned to a punishment that can vary from 3 to 5 years of prison. To flush out smokers, the local government has even trained anti-tobacco dogs to be used not only in airports but also in private homes.
Smokers in Bhutan (or those who would like to smoke) are a minority always in hiding and fugitive, in a population of 650 thousand people. The inhabitants of Bhutan are peaceful and respectful of authority and of the monarchy, but they do not seem enthusiastic about this law according to reports collected from the western media in the country. Opponents declare that the first to smoke are the members of Parliament, even though they approved this strict law, wanted by the King, with 61 votes in favor and only 4 against.
While the Bhutanese bow to the law, Chinese smokers react with intolerance and aggressiveness against those who might try to make them put out their cigarettes, for example, in a station waiting room, and no authority would dare speak of the fines that are specified on paper.
With this smoking ban the Chinese government is not trying to bend its citizens to its wishes or educate them to obedience, rather it is trying to avoid making them angry and hopes only to sensitize them. On the contrary, in compliant Bhutan, where no one would risk smoking under a sign that forbids it, they have reached a repressive situation that is almost grotesque, typical of countries of the third world.
Recently in Bhutan, a Buddhist monk riding on public transport was caught, thanks to a tip-off, with 72 packs of chewing tobacco; he was arrested and he risks 5 years of prison. Fortunately exceptions are allowed for tourists, who can bring in cigarettes from home, up to a maximum of 10 packs for each week of stay, but they have to pay an import tax of 200% (in addition to a tourist sojourn tax of $200.00 a day).
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