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3:27

So one of the things that really

3:29

struck me when I moved back to the

3:32

United States from China after 20 years living

3:34

in Beijing was how few people

3:36

in the United States smoke cigarettes anymore.

3:39

It is a huge change. And

3:42

going back to China, as I did often before

3:44

the pandemic anyway, it was just as

3:46

astonishing just how incredibly prevalent

3:49

smoking remains in China. So

3:52

according to the World Bank, between 2000 and 2020, the rate of tobacco

3:57

use among adults globally actually

3:59

fell. based

6:00

Inicium Media or Duan Quan Mei.

6:03

Jason and another co-author did

6:05

a lot of the China based reporting

6:07

for this story and I'm looking forward very

6:09

much to hearing about the reporting that you did, Jude. So

6:12

Jude, welcome to Cineca and thank you for staying

6:14

up late to chat with us about tobacco.

6:17

Hi everyone, hi guys there. It's

6:19

really honored to be here. Honored

6:21

to have you. Jason, before we go

6:23

on, I'm hoping that you or Jude could give us

6:25

an intro to the other two people

6:28

who worked on this piece and talk a little

6:30

bit about their contribution to it. Yeah,

6:33

thanks so much. We were

6:35

really lucky to work with a great team of

6:38

reporters on this project. This is a project

6:40

that took a number of months. I

6:42

started working on this back in

6:44

January. So this is really an

6:46

article that we've been working on and off on

6:49

for eight or nine months. So I really want to

6:51

thank the examination and the Pulitzer

6:53

Center on crisis reporting for

6:55

helping to fund that. There are many

6:57

news organizations that can support

7:00

reporters to do this kind of deep

7:03

reporting. And I was lucky to have some great

7:05

collaborators. Jude is obviously

7:07

one of them from Initiium Media. Also

7:09

Christophe Giesen of Der Spiegel,

7:11

he's Der Spiegel's China correspondent. He's

7:14

lived in China for seven

7:16

years. He's worked with other German

7:18

news agencies there as well. Really

7:20

a decorated reporter who knows his way around

7:22

China well and he's got a great staff of news

7:25

assistants that work with him as well. And

7:27

then the other person I would credit is my colleague,

7:29

Menyun Zhou, who is a Chinese

7:32

journalist living here in the US

7:34

now who also is just a remarkable

7:37

researcher, remarkable reporter

7:39

and certainly would never have been able to tackle

7:42

a project like this without the input of

7:44

these really well-sourced and knowledgeable

7:46

collaborators. Yeah, fantastic. Well, we all know

7:48

about Der Spiegel. Jude, maybe you could tell us a

7:50

little bit more about Initiium Media. I

7:53

don't know much about it except that it's Singapore-based.

7:56

So are you yourself Singaporean? No,

7:58

I used to work for a company called Initiium Media. I work for Chinese

8:00

language media in mainland China, and

8:04

I have been covering public health issues

8:06

since 2016. And

8:09

oh, and for Ignition, I'm working

8:11

as a freelancer. I got

8:14

an opportunity to work with

8:16

Bosnian journalists on

8:19

Chinese ventilators during the pandemic.

8:22

So this was the first time I cooperated

8:24

with Ignition. And this

8:26

project with Jason is the second

8:29

time for a collaboration journalism. Oh,

8:32

okay. Oh, fantastic. Great. And

8:34

Jason, naturally, I'm very curious to learn more about

8:36

the examination and your beat, which

8:38

really is also about health

8:40

and specifically, as I think you told me, the

8:42

sort of the commercial determinants of health.

8:45

Yeah, so the examination just

8:48

launched in September. Several

8:50

of the founding editors came from the International

8:54

Consortium for Investigative Journalism, really

8:56

well-known investigative nonprofit

8:58

that helped organize and do

9:01

the reporting of the Panama Papers

9:03

investigation and some other related

9:05

global investigations of

9:07

sort of where the global elite

9:09

rich people hide their money offshore and

9:12

evade taxes. And that was a sort of a mammoth

9:14

undertaking that involved collaborations

9:17

with dozens of different news organizations.

9:20

So that's sort of where several of our founders

9:22

came from. My background is a little different, but the idea

9:24

behind the examination is

9:26

to bring some accountability

9:29

and investigative reporting to the

9:31

industries that profit by

9:34

making products that really

9:36

affect the health of millions

9:38

and millions of people. And so, of course, a key beat

9:40

for that is tobacco, because tobacco is

9:42

perhaps the most sort of glaring

9:44

example of a highly profitable industry

9:48

that damages the health of millions

9:50

of people a year. The WHO

9:53

puts the figure of tobacco-related deaths to

9:56

eight million people a

9:58

year, more than eight million. about

10:00

that and you compare it with the number

10:02

of people who die in war or

10:05

from a host of other diseases

10:07

or illegal drugs, tobacco really

10:10

is a much larger

10:12

societal problem by a long

10:14

stretch in many respects. We don't just focus

10:16

on tobacco but also there are a number of other

10:19

industries including big food and the food

10:21

industry and of course we know that obesity

10:23

particularly in the West and the United States is a huge problem

10:26

really nearly rivaling tobacco with

10:28

respect to how many people's health it

10:30

affects and the deaths that it

10:32

causes as well as sort of standard

10:35

polluting industries that contaminate

10:37

our water our air and so on and lead

10:40

to thousands of deaths but this specific

10:42

area these industries they tend not to

10:44

be reported heavily because the way

10:47

that they affect people's health isn't

10:49

terribly dramatic right if you are

10:52

a smoker you can smoke for decades

10:54

and decades before you develop sort

10:56

of the chronic diseases that

10:58

may end your life ultimately and so

11:01

because of the nature of how these

11:03

commercial determinative health industries how

11:05

they affect our health they tend not to have

11:07

the dramatic impact of lots of other news

11:10

events like terrorism or pandemics

11:13

so on and so forth. So just now Jason

11:15

you said that that the WHO puts the

11:17

number of people who die annually globally

11:19

from tobacco at eight million. Let's

11:21

try and get our heads around some of the important numbers

11:23

in China. So how many

11:26

smokers for example or how

11:29

big is the the overall size

11:31

of the industry in China and how much

11:33

of the revenues actually

11:35

flow to the state monopoly China

11:37

Tobacco? Yeah

11:40

this is a that's a good question let's start with just

11:42

the public health aspect of

11:44

this first and so China

11:46

is by far by far by far

11:48

by far the world's largest producer

11:51

and consumer of tobacco.

11:54

Each year around the globe there's almost

11:56

six trillion it's more like five

11:59

point eight trillion. cigarettes are

12:01

produced globally. It may be a

12:03

little bit lower than that. China basically

12:05

consumes about half the world's

12:08

output now of cigarettes, right?

12:10

So it has about 20% of the world's population

12:12

smokes half the world's cigarettes.

12:15

So really when

12:17

you talk about tobacco as a global health

12:19

problem, you can't talk about it without talking about

12:21

China because if you

12:24

just look at, there's

12:26

more than 2.4 trillion

12:28

cigarettes consumed each year in

12:30

China, right? So that is more than

12:33

the next 67 countries

12:37

combined. So if you took

12:39

India, Indonesia, the United

12:41

States, Germany, Japan,

12:44

Brazil, etc. All the way until you got to the 67th

12:47

largest cigarette consuming or

12:49

68th

12:49

actually. So the next 67 countries

12:53

combined is equivalent to how many are

12:55

consumed in China each year. That's nuts.

12:59

That's just bananas. It

13:01

is. It is. It's a really dramatic

13:04

statistic. And then when you look at the health problems

13:06

this causes, we don't have quite as

13:08

precise data on that in China.

13:11

We just, we don't have the data on that.

13:13

Very conservative estimates are that more

13:16

than a million people in China

13:18

die each year from tobacco related diseases.

13:22

At the upper end, there are some other estimates that put

13:24

the figure as high as 2.7 million. It's

13:28

likely the figure from the researchers

13:30

we've talked to is between 1 and 2

13:32

million, right? So and

13:34

if you do the math, right, so China smokes almost half the

13:37

world's cigarettes, but you're like, well wait a minute, there's more

13:39

than 8 million people that die from tobacco related

13:41

diseases. If it's 1 to 2 million

13:43

deaths, that's probably 25% or

13:46

less of the diseases. Part of the reason

13:48

for that is that China until

13:50

fairly recently had a relatively

13:53

young population compared

13:55

with other countries. So

13:57

really it's just now that the effects of

14:00

all the cigarettes that are being consumed there are starting

14:02

to play out uh... across their health care

14:04

system across the across mortality

14:07

statistics so you guys your piece really focuses

14:09

on the power of the state monopoly

14:12

off of china tobacco of the s t

14:14

m a or you know back of not believe your

14:17

just how big is it

14:19

uh... it is it size something that one

14:22

can simply ascertain public

14:24

records publicly available you know revenue

14:27

reports stuff like that or

14:30

or is it something that requires the kind

14:32

of forensic investigative work that

14:34

you guys specialize in uh... give

14:36

me a sense for how how

14:39

how hard it is to report on an organization

14:42

like this and then maybe a sense of how

14:44

it's structured and and how it's run

14:47

i think in like

14:49

in china it's a monopoly system so

14:52

basically we have only one company and

14:55

it does everything like from tobacco

14:57

farming to distribution

15:00

to selling to retailing and

15:02

also has many other

15:04

business like controlling

15:07

the biggest uh... advertising company

15:09

in yinnan province yeah

15:12

so i think the monopoly has also

15:14

a lot of branches in nineteen

15:17

provinces and now i think

15:19

it's going to be bigger because of the

15:21

taxation policy can you explain

15:23

what's the taxation policy how is that changing

15:26

it's a little bit complicated because it

15:29

used to be the excise tax

15:31

in china is going to be turned

15:34

again

15:35

because

15:36

we used to put a lot of emphasis on

15:38

the manufacturing process so

15:41

the government get a lot of money

15:43

from like producing

15:46

cigarettes

15:46

but now

15:48

the government is turning the like

15:50

taxation process to the retailing

15:53

so it's kind of becoming every

15:56

province to sell more cigarettes so

15:59

that they can get more money. So

16:01

and this is also good for the monopoly

16:04

because in this way they can like

16:07

to reduce the inner

16:10

competition between provinces and

16:12

like put more emphasis on producing

16:16

cigarettes in Yunnan province and selling

16:18

in Shanghai for them it's

16:21

a benefit like this taxation

16:23

policy. Right so this tax

16:25

policy that perhaps somebody

16:27

thought would be shifting the tax

16:29

burden on to consumers and therefore maybe in

16:32

the disincentivizing them from consuming

16:35

more cigarettes is actually going to have the perverse

16:37

effect of increasing

16:39

cigarette consumption because it incentivizes

16:42

producers to be more

16:44

aggressive in marketing and distributing.

16:49

So Jason maybe you

16:51

can go back to what I was asking earlier about

16:54

the difficulty in reporting I mean you

16:56

just described a very large organization

16:59

with subsidiaries in most of

17:01

China's 30-odd provinces. What

17:03

are we looking at here in terms of the opacity

17:06

of that organization? That's

17:08

a great question actually because for

17:10

me as an outsider as a foreigner

17:12

who hadn't done a lot of reporting related to China

17:15

previously I was surprised in

17:17

some respects at how much of our reporting

17:20

was really based on records that are

17:22

public within China. You know as we mentioned

17:25

China, tobacco, the state-run

17:27

monopoly it's a government agency so

17:30

in many ways a lot of what

17:33

they do is public

17:35

or at least is quasi public

17:37

and we can talk a lot more about

17:39

that. In other respects there

17:43

are some challenges because it's very difficult

17:45

to just even talk to officials

17:48

who work for the company as

17:50

a foreigner as an independent reporter. They

17:53

don't publish detailed

17:56

financial reports as large

17:58

public companies would elsewhere.

18:02

But I can, if I can just back up a little bit, I

18:04

can give you a really brief history

18:06

of the company which I think illustrates

18:10

some of the the problems that China

18:12

faces today. So in

18:15

the early 20th century it was

18:18

really British American tobacco that

18:20

moved into China and and started

18:23

producing cigarettes there, really developed China's

18:25

cigarette markets. And then

18:27

at the time of the Chinese Civil

18:29

War the Communists ultimately

18:32

took control of these cigarette factories

18:34

and they were sort of slowly nationalized

18:37

in the 1950s. And I know those of your

18:39

listeners that listened to your podcast with Matthew Corman,

18:42

who's an outstanding scholar and has done really

18:44

detailed work along with some collaborators,

18:47

wrote a great book on the history of this company called Poisonous

18:49

Pandas.

18:52

So in the 1950s basically

18:54

all these cigarette factories in different parts of

18:56

China were nationalized by the

18:58

Communist Party. But largely

19:01

they were remained

19:03

under provincial control. So

19:06

each provincial government and

19:08

provincial Communist Party sort of had influence

19:10

over the operations of each cigarette

19:13

factory. And in many ways there was

19:15

there was sort of a competitive market within

19:18

China between these different government-owned

19:21

cigarette factories. And so you'd have cigarette

19:24

factories in Shanghai that would compete with

19:26

cigarette factories elsewhere and provincial

19:28

governments would do things like block

19:30

cigarettes from coming into Beijing,

19:33

from Yunnan because they didn't want competition

19:36

with their local factory. So in many ways there

19:38

was sort of this chaotic provincial

19:41

government-run cigarette market

19:43

in China through the 60s 70s.

19:46

And then into the early 80s under Deng Xiaoping.

19:48

You know Deng of course was very

19:50

outward-looking and he saw that

19:55

this wasn't a smart way to run

19:57

the tobacco industry, particularly

19:59

a I think he saw that perhaps

20:02

down the road, China would be competing much more

20:04

with international companies and they're having

20:06

little factories and all these dozens of different

20:09

provinces and cities run by local officials.

20:11

It wasn't gonna, the result wasn't

20:13

gonna be a very modern, well-run

20:16

industry. So that's when China

20:18

Tobacco was created in the early 1980s to

20:21

sort of centralize control over all

20:23

these dozens of little cigarette factories

20:26

that existed across China. And that's

20:28

what really, when the industry began to be modernized

20:31

and rationalized in many respects. Now, kind

20:33

of what's interesting is that at the same time,

20:36

this cigarette monopoly was set up. Shortly

20:39

thereafter,

20:41

Deng created something that you referenced

20:43

earlier, the State Tobacco Monopoly Agency,

20:46

the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, which was

20:49

meant to be like the regulator and

20:51

oversee all aspects of

20:54

the tobacco industry in China. Jude was

20:56

mentioning earlier that the

20:58

China Tobacco, for example, determines the

21:00

price that farmers get paid

21:03

for their tobacco crop. And

21:06

it's tentacles across this

21:08

industry are really much

21:11

deeper and wider than that. They control

21:13

all aspects of the supply chain. If

21:16

you wanna truck tobacco in China, you need

21:18

a license from

21:20

the State Tobacco Monopoly. If you wanna

21:22

retail tobacco in China,

21:24

you need a license from the State Tobacco Monopoly.

21:27

Now, what's interesting is that sort of the commercial

21:29

arm of the company, the

21:32

guys who are basically overseeing the cigarette

21:34

factories, running the cigarette factories, they're

21:37

the same guys who are also the regulators

21:40

of this industry. And so this

21:42

is where the dynamic in China gets

21:44

really interesting. This is really the central thrust

21:47

of our story is that it's the

21:50

cigarette company itself that regulates

21:53

itself. And this has caused a whole

21:56

bunch of problems when

21:59

it comes to public. health because clearly if you're

22:01

making money selling cigarettes

22:04

you don't have any interest to take steps

22:07

to reduce your sale of cigarettes

22:09

if that makes sense and the fact that this is all nested

22:12

within the same company is just

22:15

an enormous conflict of interest that

22:18

really hasn't been resolved to this day. So

22:20

it does make sense and it also makes absolutely

22:22

no sense. So it's

22:25

like there was this great quote from

22:27

Ray Yip who used to be

22:29

a senior person in China with the Bill and Melinda

22:32

Gates Foundation. He said

22:34

it's like a soccer match where

22:36

China Tobacco is both a player and the referee

22:38

and that really drives

22:41

home. So yeah like you said you know your

22:43

work this this piece focuses very much

22:45

on the fact that China Tobacco this

22:48

mega tobacco merchant is also

22:50

the regulator. I'm sure that there

22:52

will be a lot of people who will hear this and just be you

22:54

know what did I hear that right is

22:56

I mean total disbelief. How can moral

22:58

hazard on that scale be allowed

23:01

to persist with something especially that's as lethal

23:04

as as as tobacco? Would

23:07

I be correct to say that at least in

23:10

its own understanding China Tobacco

23:12

doesn't think of itself as

23:15

the regulator. I mean it would say no the

23:17

regulator is is the health administrator.

23:20

The regulator is you know the

23:22

state council. We are we police

23:25

the industry but we don't set

23:27

I mean for example it wasn't

23:30

the China Tobacco Monopoly Bureau that

23:32

decided we're going to put warnings

23:34

on labels right. So

23:37

in what sense do you really mean just

23:39

really specifically is China

23:41

Tobacco the biggest producer also

23:44

actually also the regulator? I

23:47

can say one thing during

23:50

the negotiation of FCTC

23:52

the WHO Framework Convention

23:54

on Tobacco Control and

23:57

it used to in the draft

23:59

it used to say that it's

24:02

the state health administration

24:04

who controls the label warning, but

24:07

the China tobacco who participated

24:09

in the negotiation suggested

24:11

them to change this term to state

24:15

administration. And this way they

24:17

can control the warning

24:19

label in China. In

24:22

the end, it succeeded in

24:24

controlling this policy because the health

24:27

administration, they don't have

24:30

the right to change the

24:32

label on the cigarette packets.

24:35

It's the STMA who decided everything.

24:39

This is the part of the FCC,

24:42

the health administration could do nothing.

24:45

They might understand correct, just so I get

24:47

this right. The state tobacco monopoly

24:49

administration was participating

24:52

in the negotiations with this UN

24:54

body of office treaty. Yes.

24:57

Like having arms merchants at an arms

25:00

negotiation, it seems like. Yes,

25:02

especially at the beginning, it was trying

25:05

to control the Chinese delegation.

25:08

So

25:08

they are very active. They

25:11

set up research group

25:13

and also participate in the

25:15

negotiation.

25:18

So when you talk about how they were able

25:20

to enforce their

25:23

will to wield really significant

25:25

influence over other

25:28

participants in the negotiations or other

25:30

governmental agencies, I want to

25:33

understand how it actually wields

25:35

that influence because China

25:37

doesn't have anything that we would understand

25:39

as like a parliament or a legislative

25:43

body. There

25:46

aren't

25:47

lobbyists organizations as we understand

25:50

them. So how does it co-opt high

25:52

ranking officials and does

25:55

this flat out corruption,

25:58

how does it step clear of... the anti-corruption

26:00

efforts that have been underway for over

26:03

a decade now since Xi Jinping came

26:05

into office. I want to say

26:08

the mechanism of influence here. Well,

26:13

I can jump in on that. Sure. I'll

26:15

just touch on briefly what you were asking earlier

26:18

about this distinction between the state

26:20

tobacco monopoly administration

26:22

and China Tobacco. Within China,

26:24

there's essentially no distinction.

26:27

The different terms are used

26:29

in the context of whether people are

26:31

talking about regulation or the

26:33

commercial activities of the company, but it's understood

26:35

to be one and the same thing. The

26:38

general manager, the equivalent of the CEO, Zhang

26:40

Zhanmen, of China Tobacco, he's the

26:42

director of the state tobacco monopoly

26:44

administration. Now this

26:46

is a little bit different in the sense that he's a government

26:49

official. My understanding is that he holds

26:51

the same rank as a deputy

26:54

governor on the provincial level.

26:56

In fact, one of our sources when we did

26:59

a lot of reporting about how China Tobacco shapes

27:01

health policies within China, he said that when

27:03

the head of China Tobacco comes and

27:06

meets with the mayor of a city, say a city

27:08

is trying to pass a ban on

27:10

indoor smoking, it's like a boss

27:13

talking to his employee in many respects

27:15

because he literally outranks

27:18

a city mayor within the formal

27:20

hierarchy. But in a lot of ways, this really understates

27:24

the power of this company because as

27:26

we discussed in our piece, in 2022, the company earned 1.44

27:28

trillion RMB. That's $213

27:32

billion for the Chinese state. That's 7%

27:38

of all of China's government revenues,

27:41

and it's a figure that's equivalent to China's

27:43

official defense budget. So

27:48

this gives them a huge amount

27:50

of power within the government, even

27:52

relative to other ministers, and the minister

27:55

of health, for example, is much weaker

27:57

within the government compared with... say,

28:00

the general manager of China Tobacco.

28:02

And I think one of the things that magnifies

28:05

their influence is that within China's

28:07

government, China Tobacco is

28:10

part of the Ministry of Industry

28:13

and Information Technology, one of the so-called

28:15

super ministries within the Chinese government

28:17

that is one of sort of the handful of

28:20

the most powerful industries and is

28:22

able to exert great influence over

28:25

the government through the Ministry of

28:27

Industry and Information Technology

28:30

as well. But its influence, it's not a

28:32

new thing. And in fact, dating

28:34

back 20, 30 years ago, China

28:38

is a lower middle income country in many

28:40

respects. Now, of course, 30, 40 years

28:42

ago, China was much poorer. It was much

28:45

more dependent than on tobacco

28:47

revenues to support the state,

28:50

even than it is today. It was probably more like 10%,

28:54

15% or more in terms of how much money

28:56

the central government got from selling tobacco.

28:59

So in many ways, a lot of its influence comes

29:01

from its historical significance

29:04

that it's something of a sacred cow

29:06

within the government. And we can really

29:08

see that influence. And

29:10

from our reporting in the 1990s under

29:14

Jiang Zemin, who, as you know,

29:16

was trying to open China to the outside

29:18

world in many respects. He

29:21

decided to host a major international

29:24

conference on tobacco control

29:26

in China. And this is in 1997. And

29:29

as part of our reporting, we were able to obtain

29:31

a letter from China Tobacco

29:34

to the state council to Jiang

29:36

Zemin, to other important

29:38

players in the government, basically warning them

29:40

to keep in mind that China

29:43

Tobacco is the government's single largest

29:46

earner in the

29:48

context of this tobacco control conference.

29:50

And they go on to warn people

29:53

and how they talk about tobacco control. And

29:55

mind you, this is back in 1997 that

29:58

while academics and people and civil

30:00

society can freely share their

30:02

opinions on the harms of tobacco. They

30:05

say government officials should be very

30:07

careful in what they say. And

30:11

as we spoke with a noted tobacco

30:13

control advocate, Judith Mackay, who is

30:15

a Hong Kong based tobacco control advocate

30:17

based, who's worked in China

30:20

for a number of years, she said when Jiang Zemin opened

30:22

that conference, his opening

30:25

speech was so sort of lukewarm

30:27

and tepid on this issue of smoking,

30:30

she said you wouldn't have known it was a tobacco control

30:32

conference. Wow.

30:34

Wow. So, I want

30:37

to follow up on this. You've talked a little bit

30:39

about the people on the other side, the

30:42

people who work in advocacy. You've

30:45

talked about how Jiang Zemin said that

30:47

civil society groups should be able to say what

30:49

they want, but ultimately they're going to run up against this hard

30:51

reality. So let's talk about the landscape

30:54

in terms of anti-smoking advocacy.

30:56

I mean, in my years in China, especially

30:58

I'm going to say after 2010 or so, I

31:01

saw quite a bit of effort publicly

31:03

at least to try to curb smoking,

31:05

or at least I thought I saw that.

31:08

The advocates used to be quite outspoken, I thought,

31:10

about China's tobacco role in government

31:13

too. Before we get into

31:15

what's gone wrong and why anti-smoking

31:17

advocates are now losing ground, let's

31:20

talk about what they had managed to do

31:22

in the first place. So Jude,

31:24

maybe give me a sense of what

31:27

sorts of organizations are working against

31:31

tobacco's widespread use. What

31:34

are the existing rules about

31:37

smoking? Are there, for

31:39

example, bans on certain types of advertising?

31:42

Is there mandatory language on packaging? Are

31:45

there rules about selling to minors?

31:47

Are there bans on public transportation? Things

31:50

like that. Where are we right now, Jude,

31:52

in terms of advocacy

31:55

and its successes to date?

31:57

I think the...

31:59

The tobacco country community in China have

32:02

succeeded a lot

32:04

in legislation, especially

32:07

in big cities.

32:09

And also they have done a lot

32:11

of campaigns on promoting

32:14

the public awareness

32:16

in tobacco. But compared

32:19

to the tobacco country movement in the US,

32:22

I think the community here,

32:24

they constricted their

32:26

movement in public health.

32:28

As I know, in the US, the

32:31

tobacco control was part of the

32:33

civil rights movement. So

32:35

I think basically it's a human

32:37

rights issue.

32:39

In China, the community mainly

32:42

consists of the public health

32:45

experts and also NGOs.

32:48

And the number of those communities,

32:51

those organizations are very

32:53

limited. You can count in one

32:55

hand.

32:57

And also now

32:59

they lack funding.

33:01

So

33:02

they mainly get money from other

33:05

countries' organizations. And

33:09

also I think they face a lot

33:11

of pressure from the tobacco industry

33:14

because they are scared

33:17

by the tobacco company. Because

33:20

the company said that they represent

33:22

other countries' benefits. They

33:25

are trying to

33:28

sell more cigarettes from the

33:30

US and also they are

33:32

representing the Western

33:34

ideology, such things. That's

33:36

interesting. And that's one

33:39

of many approaches that

33:41

are taken. Part of the landscape

33:43

that we're talking about is cultural.

33:47

I think that anyone who's been, for example,

33:49

to a wedding in China will remember how

33:53

there will be at the reception boxes

33:55

of cigarettes, even packs of cigarettes

33:57

in front of every place. It's pretty crazy.

34:00

crazy. People gift cigarettes

34:02

all the time. There are all sorts of status

34:05

markers associated with the brand

34:07

that you smoke, the cigarettes that

34:09

you give, the cigarettes that you receive.

34:12

So Jude, can you talk a little bit

34:14

about the role that cigarettes

34:17

have in Chinese culture and Chinese business

34:20

culture in particular? And we'll get to an example

34:22

of how that is sometimes

34:24

used as a defense by China tobacco

34:26

as well. And also I'm wondering

34:30

why it's so gendered, why it is

34:32

that male smoking is

34:34

so prevalent compared to female

34:36

in China and whether that is similar

34:39

to other countries or is this particular to

34:41

China. So let's start with the general

34:43

smoking culture in China. I think

34:46

smoking is still very popular in China.

34:49

If you attend a wedding ceremony,

34:51

you can see smoking like

34:54

cigarettes from maybe double happiness.

34:57

This brand will be put on the

34:59

table and guests could

35:01

have a cigarette during this

35:04

feast.

35:06

Maybe you won't find this thing in Shanghai

35:08

because of the legislation it's prohibited,

35:11

but you probably find like

35:13

in Yunnan or like in

35:16

Sichuan in the southwest part of China.

35:18

And when I visited

35:20

Yunnan to do the research

35:22

in tobacco farming,

35:24

I see the local farmers, they

35:27

exchange

35:28

cigarettes every time when

35:30

they meet in the villages. So

35:33

it's I think it's a way for

35:35

them to make friends or

35:38

showing their politeness, showing their friendliness.

35:42

So

35:43

regarding the gender discrepancy,

35:46

I think it has something to

35:48

do with the gender equality in

35:51

China. So if a man

35:53

smoked, you wouldn't think it's

35:56

a bad behavior. Sometimes you would

35:58

think it's really cool.

36:28

to

38:01

male smoking rates and so it's

38:04

in some senses in other cultural

38:06

contexts I think women's smoking is associated

38:08

with independence or sophistication

38:11

and a lot of these positive attributions

38:14

that people may have with smoking

38:16

like oh I'm cosmopolitan, I'm smoking these

38:18

are things the tobacco industry has very

38:21

much fomented and tried to capitalize

38:23

on but sort of one

38:25

of the interesting aspects of this story is that within

38:28

China that's not really

38:30

the case as much. China Tobacco does have some

38:32

brands that are focused and marketed

38:35

at women but they certainly haven't

38:37

been as aggressive in marketing to

38:39

women as the transnational

38:42

tobacco companies have. In fact an interesting

38:44

case study is that of Hong Kong

38:46

which has very different smoking rates

38:49

than mainland China and

38:51

my understanding from reporting

38:53

this piece a lot of this has to do with

38:56

sort of Hong Kong's different government

38:58

and historical institutions but in

39:00

Hong Kong most of the cigarettes

39:02

that you see sold do come from the Western

39:05

tobacco companies you see Marlborough's

39:08

or other Western brands

39:10

are much more common but one of the things

39:12

that happened in Hong Kong is that

39:14

when the Western tobacco companies

39:17

moved in several decades ago they

39:19

began very aggressively marketing

39:21

cigarettes to women there

39:24

you know if you think of Virginia Slims and

39:27

some of the brands that Philip Morris and others

39:29

had that were clearly targeted and clearly

39:32

marketed to women and one

39:34

of the sources that I was talking

39:36

to about this mentioned that

39:38

this marketing this really aggressive marketing

39:41

of cigarettes to women actually engineered a

39:43

backlash in Hong Kong that was

39:45

beneficial to the tobacco

39:47

control movement to public health officials

39:50

because they were able to cast

39:52

the tobacco companies that were doing

39:55

this as foreigners who were disrupting

39:57

culture and causing causing problems. And

40:00

so the tobacco control movement was actually

40:02

able to capitalize on this.

40:06

And the story, it isn't

40:08

quite this simple, but Hong Kong has a tremendous

40:10

success in limiting smoking

40:13

rates and reducing smoking,

40:15

in part because of this one fact. It's interesting

40:17

how in Hong Kong you have

40:21

anti-smoking advocates co-opting

40:23

nationalism. And in China,

40:25

in mainland China, it's quite the opposite.

40:27

In China, two years ago, the house

40:32

ministry, they tried to do

40:34

something for the female smoking. So

40:37

in their year plan, they're trying

40:39

to curb the

40:41

female smoking prevalence. But

40:45

then the Chinese feminists, they

40:48

deny such behavior because they

40:50

know that in China, the female prevalence

40:53

is only 2%. So they think

40:55

this is a strategy from the tobacco

40:58

company. Interesting.

41:00

Yeah. Much of your work

41:02

focuses on really, really

41:04

fascinating examples of the ways

41:07

in which China's tobacco has

41:10

sort of prevailed over these

41:13

efforts by municipalities, by cities to

41:16

ban smoking indoors, for example.

41:20

Let's start with, I mean, I think a

41:22

lot of this seems to flow from the

41:24

city of Chongqing. And

41:26

you open with that and you

41:29

make the argument that basically after

41:32

they defeated the indoor smoking

41:34

ban in Chongqing, we

41:37

saw basically no other Chinese

41:39

cities able to pass bans on indoor

41:41

smoking. So let's start with Chongqing.

41:45

Can you talk

41:47

about how China tobacco

41:49

was able to stop that law

41:51

from passing in Chongqing? Jude,

41:54

I know you worked on this, so it'd be interesting

41:56

to hear. Yeah. was

42:00

back in 2019.

42:03

I was told by the activist

42:06

that

42:07

focused on Chongqing's legislation

42:09

that Chongqing was

42:11

going to change their plan for smoke-free

42:14

legislation and then we

42:16

have done

42:17

some investigation in Chongqing

42:20

and we can see that even

42:22

in hospitals there are cigarettes,

42:25

people are smoking. So

42:27

and we used a PM2.5

42:31

machine to test whether the

42:34

air quality is good or bad and

42:37

in the toilet of a hospital

42:40

the

42:42

figure is really high in

42:45

the toilet. And

42:47

also in the railway station

42:50

people are just smoking indoors

42:53

and in the pub in the crowds.

42:57

So I think the situation of second

43:00

hand smoke is really bad in Chongqing

43:02

and the 32

43:05

million people in Chongqing they really

43:07

deserve a law to

43:09

protect them. And

43:12

then maybe a year later

43:15

before the law come out

43:19

we know that the

43:21

president of SDMA

43:24

they visited

43:26

Chongqing and they talked to the

43:28

party chief and also the mayor

43:31

in Chongqing. We didn't know.

43:33

Actually they there

43:37

are two levels. Chongqing are with the

43:39

FUBUJI. It's pretty really

43:42

high in the party and

43:45

Jiang Zemin is only FUBUJI.

43:47

They have two standards.

43:50

Yes. So

43:52

that shows the

43:53

Jiang Zemin, the

43:56

the SDMA they have really

43:58

strong power in place.

43:59

political

44:01

and We didn't know what they talked

44:03

about but

44:04

I think everyone guess

44:07

the one of the topic is about

44:09

the legislation in Chongqing and after

44:12

that

44:14

Chongqing failed to get a smoke-free

44:17

legislation

44:18

and after that like

44:20

the other city will apply Chongqing's

44:22

experience they would like this

44:25

case only increased the power

44:27

of the

44:28

tobacco industry and

44:30

It really influenced

44:33

the tobacco country movement in China

44:36

in a profound way

44:38

Yeah, if I could just add to that I think I

44:40

think this is a good question the key

44:42

moment in our story that we're talking about

44:45

so passing indoor smoking

44:47

bans was a fundamental

44:50

part of the WHO

44:52

anti-tobacco treaty that China signed

44:54

in 2003 and under that treaty

44:57

China is supposed to pass a national ban and

44:59

banned smoking in all indoor public

45:02

places restaurants and hotels

45:04

and karaoke clubs in bowling

45:07

alleys in schools and hospitals

45:10

What we saw is that? China

45:13

failed to pass this indoor smoking

45:15

ban and we can come back to how that failed

45:18

at the national level but By 2016

45:21

2017 right 12 13 years later after the treaty took effect

45:26

China hasn't passed this national smoking law, but we

45:28

have seen some major cities

45:31

pass smoking bans of their

45:33

own That outlaw smoking

45:36

in restaurants in hotels Beijing

45:39

Shanghai Shenzhen

45:41

so on and so forth and there's the

45:44

the tobacco control community the public health community

45:46

has really got some momentum In

45:50

doing this they say okay, we're not going to get this law

45:52

at the national level, but we can do this piece

45:54

by piece Right what's really important about Chongqing

45:57

of course is that it's a huge city And

46:00

it's one of just four cities where, you

46:03

know, the city government reports directly to Beijing.

46:06

Right. And there's about 32 million people

46:09

in Chongqing. And so there's this big

46:12

fight about Chongqing

46:14

that all happens behind closed doors. Chongqing

46:16

city government wants to pass this law.

46:18

They have a draft law that does exactly this.

46:21

Lo and behold, just as Jude was saying, the

46:23

general manager of China Tobacco shows up. He

46:26

meets with the head of Chongqing's

46:28

Communist Party and the mayor almost

46:30

immediately afterwards. The law

46:33

is changed to allow indoor

46:35

smoking. And because

46:37

Chongqing is such an important city, this city

46:40

is used as a precedent again and

46:42

again and again in the years that follow

46:45

to essentially block these laws. And

46:48

other city governments use it as their own excuse

46:50

not to pass indoor smoking

46:52

ban. In fact, China

46:54

Tobacco seems to punish

46:58

people who fail to put

47:00

enough pressure on local government to

47:04

squash these indoor smoking bans. For example,

47:06

you guys talk about how in Xining,

47:09

a city, the capital of Qinghai

47:11

province, the local

47:15

boss of the Xining China

47:17

Tobacco office was sacked

47:21

after he didn't successfully oppose

47:24

the indoor smoking ban. Is that correct? Yes,

47:27

we got this anecdote

47:30

from quite a lot of

47:32

members of the community in China. They

47:36

all know this thing. I think

47:39

it's not just Xining and after

47:41

Chongqing, like every city, when

47:43

they try to do a legislation in smoke

47:45

free,

47:46

indoor

47:50

ban, they have to talk with the

47:53

SDMA. SDMA will send their

47:55

staff to talk to influence

47:58

the other departments directly.

47:59

Because

48:02

the staff of STMA, they feel

48:04

pressure as well because

48:07

if they do nothing, they will get sucked.

48:11

One other city that you looked at,

48:13

and I think it was really

48:16

kind of illuminating about what China

48:18

Tobacco's playbook has been like. In

48:21

your piece, Jude, you talk about this letter that

48:23

was written to officials in June of this

48:26

year in a town called Tieshou, which I think

48:29

is in Anhui. They

48:31

were considering an indoor ban. And

48:33

the line of argument in this letter that you laid

48:35

out went something like, this ban would

48:38

hurt China's business culture. So basically

48:40

it was an argument from this kind of economic

48:43

development perspective. What

48:45

else was in that letter, Jude? And how did

48:47

you get a hold of something like that? Yes,

48:50

I think this letter was really precious because

48:52

usually we couldn't find such documents

48:55

very easily. And this

48:57

is really a good showcase

49:00

of how tobacco industry is trying

49:02

to influence the tobacco control movement.

49:06

And I think for me, the most

49:08

interesting in the letter was the

49:11

Chinese tobacco is trying

49:13

to apply the Chinese constitution.

49:16

Because in

49:18

the legislation in Tieshou, they're

49:21

trying to put forward

49:23

an idea of smoking

49:26

in your family, smoking

49:28

control in your family. And the tobacco

49:31

industry, they apply the constitution

49:34

as family

49:35

is free from the public

49:38

power.

49:40

So we shouldn't

49:43

put forward a smoke-free family.

49:48

In China, the constitution is

49:50

never applied in a court, but they

49:53

apply the

49:54

constitution to influence.

49:58

So,

50:01

Jason, you just now kind of looked

50:03

at 2016-2017 as kind of the period where the tides

50:09

seemed to return, all these promising

50:11

early initiatives, and they

50:13

seemed to have faltered.

50:16

What is it that you think happened to bring about this

50:18

change? Yeah,

50:21

this is a good question. So

50:24

the span of time that the examination

50:27

and our colleagues we looked at is really

50:29

about the last 25 years within

50:32

China and trying to document China tobacco's

50:34

influence. And

50:36

that included the time period in the early

50:38

2000s when this bigger national treaty was being negotiated.

50:41

And we saw that after China signed that treaty

50:44

promising to do all this stuff to

50:46

control tobacco, almost none of it

50:48

happened for a period of about

50:52

seven, eight, nine years. Tobacco industry grew

50:54

very fast in the years immediately

50:56

after China signed this tobacco control treaty.

50:59

Then there's a change in leadership in

51:01

China. And in 2013 Xi

51:04

Jinping becomes president. And

51:07

tobacco control was an issue that he wanted to

51:09

do work on. And

51:12

so sort of in the period 2013

51:15

to 2016, we did see that China took

51:17

a number of fairly significant steps

51:20

to control tobacco. We

51:23

saw that there were bands in major cities. There

51:26

was an increase in cigarette taxes, which is probably

51:29

the simplest, most straightforward way

51:31

to reduce smoking. I remember

51:35

in the public sort of propaganda effort, we

51:37

had Peng Liyuan. And Xi

51:39

Jinping I think was actually there at some

51:41

of the events. She did stuff with the

51:44

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I

51:46

remember I got in a little bit of trouble

51:49

because by due, the company

51:51

I was working for at the time was actually

51:54

participating in these. Our CEO went

51:56

and attended and he had a, you know, took a

51:58

picture with Bill Gates wearing it. He's

52:01

a militant anti-smoker, but

52:04

our CFO who I worked for was

52:06

actually on the board of Philip Morris

52:09

and a student observer put

52:12

that together. What are you going

52:14

to do? Nothing

52:17

I could really do to weasel out of that. It's

52:21

interesting. I'm sorry,

52:23

go ahead. Yeah, but at that time it seems

52:25

like there was real momentum, right? Yeah,

52:29

so there was a lot of momentum.

52:32

We could talk maybe just a little bit about Xi

52:34

and his interest in this issue before

52:36

we get to the question that you initially asked.

52:39

We do know that Xi Jinping was a smoker

52:42

himself. From the sources

52:44

we've read, we understand he started smoking actually

52:46

during the Cultural

52:49

Revolution when he was sent to a

52:51

rural part of China to do work,

52:54

basically, as a

52:57

form of reeducation. We

53:00

understand that he did quit smoking in

53:02

the early 1990s, around the time that he married

53:04

his second wife, Peng Yun, who

53:07

you mentioned. Xi

53:09

herself becomes an ambassador

53:12

for the Chinese

53:14

Association on Tobacco Control

53:16

and a public spokesperson starting in about 2009.

53:19

At the same time, both Xi

53:21

and Yao Ming, the famous basketball player,

53:24

became anti-smoking spokespeople

53:27

at that time. There's some indication

53:30

that Xi may have done this at Xi's behest

53:32

because he thought that this was an issue

53:34

he wanted to be out front on. Of course, Peng herself

53:37

was already a celebrity in China, was

53:39

very well known. Then we see,

53:42

you mentioned this meeting between Peng and Bill

53:44

Gates in 2012. They're

53:46

photographed together wearing these bright red

53:48

t-shirts with anti-smoking

53:50

messages on them. This is

53:52

during a visit of Bill Gates to Beijing.

53:55

They're both holding out their hands in the stop

53:58

signal. In this photograph, we have a picture of them. Bill

54:00

Gates, who of course is well known within China, is

54:03

ultimately used as part of a tobacco control

54:05

campaign by anti-smoking

54:08

groups on the subway, their

54:10

posters made of it, so

54:12

on and so forth for about a year. Then

54:15

interestingly, according to our reporting,

54:18

the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control gets

54:20

a phone call from the health minister

54:23

who orders that this poster

54:25

be taken down. They're told

54:27

that it's demeaning to the first lady to have her

54:30

in a tobacco control campaign. There were some other

54:33

comedians and actors whose photos

54:35

were also used and suggested this is sort

54:38

of a loss of face for the first lady

54:40

to be featured in this way. But it's

54:43

a strange sounding campaign

54:46

and so we don't know exactly

54:48

what the genesis was or why the first lady

54:50

is pulled from this in 2013,

54:52

but we do know that sort of in spite of this,

54:56

she does push some significant tobacco

54:58

control measures in his first few

55:00

years in office. I talked

55:02

about citywide smoking bans

55:04

and cigarette taxes may be the most significant

55:07

thing and you can speak to this as well,

55:09

was an order that officials, that

55:11

cadres, should no longer smoke

55:13

in public, that they shouldn't appear

55:16

on television, they shouldn't be in public meetings smoking.

55:19

This is really seen as a message

55:22

coming from the top because it's coming both

55:24

from the state council and

55:26

from the party itself that this

55:28

is no longer okay to

55:31

do this.

55:33

And so there's a lot of momentum going into

55:35

this 2016 period, 2017 period,

55:38

and then things start to change. And

55:41

what appears to happen is that China tobacco

55:44

becomes much more aggressive

55:47

in pushing back on other parts

55:49

of the government, on other parts of civil

55:51

society that are advocating for

55:54

tobacco control and they become much

55:56

more effective in their messaging

55:58

and much more directive, say, to local

56:00

officials who are interested in passing

56:02

smoking bans, that they shouldn't be doing

56:05

this. And so, you know, a lot of our peace

56:08

focuses on the issue of smoking

56:10

bans in China and this big fight within

56:12

the Chinese government as to whether or not those

56:14

should be passed. But actually, there's many

56:16

other methods of tobacco control,

56:19

but essentially, by this period, China tobacco

56:22

had basically sealed off most

56:24

of these. You know, there was one

56:27

cigarette tax in Greece. That's the only

56:29

one, essentially, that's happened in over 20 years

56:32

in China. There's cigarette

56:34

warning labels, as Jude mentioned. Those

56:37

are written and designed by China tobacco

56:39

itself. By the same people who are selling you cigarettes are

56:42

designing and writing the cigarette labels. So as

56:44

you can imagine, those cigarette labels are

56:46

not terribly descriptive. They're not graphic.

56:49

In fact, in many cases, they blend right in

56:51

with the beautiful packaging

56:54

of Chinese cigarettes. And so

56:56

there are all these other range of ways

56:58

that smoking can be reduced. But

57:01

really, there's this focus by the public

57:03

health community on smoking bans because they feel

57:05

like that's really the only element

57:08

that they can influence. And

57:10

then starting in 2016, 2017, moving into 2018, momentum on that really

57:12

stops. And

57:16

there really hasn't been much good news

57:19

for the tobacco control community over

57:22

the last five years. Jude,

57:24

has the new generation

57:27

of younger people coming up, have they gotten

57:30

more interested in the fight, less interested

57:32

in the fight? I mean, my sense is

57:34

that they've gotten pretty quiet. I don't

57:36

hear it a lot. Is this just the power

57:39

of China tobacco? Or

57:41

do you think that there has

57:43

been sort of a sense that

57:46

they've already been defeated?

57:48

Yes. In

57:51

big cities like Shanghai, Beijing,

57:53

we could see that the smoking prevalence

57:55

is decreasing and the

57:57

younger generation, they wouldn't like to be defeated.

58:00

be a smoker like their fathers

58:03

but I think in rural areas it's

58:05

a different picture like

58:07

the

58:08

younger generation they think smoking

58:11

is still very cool so

58:13

they're trying to be like

58:15

smokers

58:16

and also I think so

58:19

it's different between rural and the city

58:23

and I think smoking tobacco

58:26

control in China is not like

58:29

a core issue even in the

58:31

public health community

58:33

so it's

58:34

it's kind of it's

58:36

not it in the center of the public

58:38

health issues so I think

58:40

that's why the tobacco

58:43

control community is

58:45

feeling anxious

58:47

because

58:48

they don't have much energy

58:50

I understand yeah there's

58:53

also been a lot of sort of negative examples

58:55

Jude in your in your piece

58:58

you talk about a researcher named Xi Jinping

59:00

who became a member

59:02

of the very prestigious Chinese Academy of Engineering

59:05

in 2011 largely because

59:07

he had done work looking

59:09

at the claims of so-called light

59:11

or low tar cigarettes that were being sold

59:14

I think before 2013 so there is

59:17

an event there

59:21

was an event in China like Xi

59:23

Jinping was going to be elected

59:26

as a highly

59:29

high-level activation

59:32

in

59:33

Zhongguo, Guangchengyuan and

59:36

and it's not the community

59:39

which founded this news but

59:41

like somebody in the volunteer

59:44

and he said why

59:46

is a member

59:49

from the tobacco industry is going

59:51

to be a high-level activation

59:53

in China so that's really questionable

59:56

and then the community the

59:58

tobacco control community they tried everything

1:00:01

they could to change

1:00:03

that, to prevent that from

1:00:05

happening. And also the

1:00:08

former

1:00:11

Vice Minister of Health Department,

1:00:14

they also talked in public, tried

1:00:17

to prevent that from happening.

1:00:19

But in the end, the

1:00:22

community failed and Xi Jinping

1:00:24

is still very

1:00:27

active

1:00:28

in tobacco control. And

1:00:32

also one thing Xi Jinping has done is, years ago,

1:00:34

maybe 10 years ago, he

1:00:38

wrote a paper suggesting

1:00:41

that the tobacco, the CMA,

1:00:44

should control the e-cigarettes industry

1:00:47

in China. Because, yes,

1:00:50

and that really happened in 2021. The

1:00:53

SDMA, they controlled the

1:00:56

e-cigarettes in China. So

1:00:58

now the e-cigarettes producer,

1:01:01

they have to sell their e-cigarettes

1:01:04

to the Chinese tobacco. And

1:01:06

then the Chinese tobacco will sell those

1:01:09

e-cigarettes

1:01:11

to the public. So

1:01:13

let me get this right. My understanding

1:01:17

was that China tobacco did not have

1:01:19

a big market share in e-cigarettes

1:01:22

prior to 2021. And so it

1:01:25

was on the suggestion of this guy, Xi Jinping,

1:01:29

who has now basically helped

1:01:31

to hand control of

1:01:34

the vaping market entirely

1:01:36

to

1:01:37

China tobacco. Is that right? It's

1:01:40

like the course

1:01:42

before 2021,

1:01:45

in China, it's not clear which

1:01:47

department should like control, supervise

1:01:50

the e-cigarettes industry. And

1:01:53

Xi Jinping, he is

1:01:55

a representative of the tobacco industry.

1:01:58

So he suggested for long time, time

1:02:00

that the Chinese tobacco company

1:02:03

the STMA the state

1:02:05

monopoly

1:02:07

should be the supervisor of

1:02:09

e-cigarettes industry

1:02:11

and after about 10 years this suggestion

1:02:14

came true

1:02:15

that

1:02:16

STMA is controlling e-cigarettes

1:02:19

company and Chinese tobacco they

1:02:21

didn't they don't produce e-cigarettes

1:02:24

like

1:02:25

domestically so

1:02:29

so they just step

1:02:31

inside the e-cigarettes industry and get

1:02:33

money and actually does

1:02:36

do nothing although they have

1:02:38

like prohibited flavored

1:02:40

e-cigarettes totally

1:02:43

in China

1:02:44

because they think that will introduce

1:02:47

more younger smokers to

1:02:49

become e-cigarettes users right

1:02:52

same thinking is in America right

1:02:54

yeah but actually they don't

1:02:56

change their policy of flavored

1:02:58

conventional cigarettes so there

1:03:01

are still a lot of conventional cigarettes

1:03:04

with flavor being sold in China

1:03:06

Chinese markets

1:03:07

Wow

1:03:08

fascinating yeah this is a really

1:03:10

interesting issue that Jude that

1:03:12

Jude raises because

1:03:15

China tobacco has made the sale of

1:03:18

these low tar reduced-harm cigarettes

1:03:20

really its core business strategy

1:03:22

and it's important to be clear about

1:03:25

this this is something that the

1:03:28

Western tobacco companies did

1:03:30

starting in the 1960s when the first science

1:03:32

emerged that smoking causes lung cancer

1:03:35

obviously there's a lot of public concern about this in the

1:03:37

way the tobacco companies responded was

1:03:39

saying we're going to make the cigarettes less

1:03:42

harmful for you we're going to start making low tar

1:03:45

cigarettes we're going to start making light cigarettes

1:03:47

right and those of us of a certain age of course

1:03:49

can all easily remember a time when

1:03:51

you could buy Marlboro lights or camel

1:03:53

lights in the US you can't do that anymore

1:03:56

and the reason why is that after

1:03:58

this went on for decades and decades decades, essentially

1:04:01

public health researchers realized that

1:04:03

these camel lights or Marlboro

1:04:05

lights, those cigarettes, in fact,

1:04:09

these low tar cigarettes, the harms that

1:04:11

they cause are just as great

1:04:13

as regular filtered cigarettes.

1:04:15

And the reasons for this, they're

1:04:17

a little complicated, but basically the way they measure the

1:04:20

tar content in a cigarette, the

1:04:22

way that the cigarette industry did it was they had robots

1:04:24

essentially smoking the cigarettes in the

1:04:27

same way and then they would sort of measure the

1:04:29

amount of carcinogens and harmful

1:04:31

chemicals in the smoke. But

1:04:33

what happens is that people don't smoke cigarettes

1:04:36

in the same way that robots

1:04:38

do and people are after nicotine.

1:04:40

So they would suck harder on the light

1:04:42

cigarettes, they would inhale the smoke deeper into

1:04:44

their lungs and often cases this right

1:04:47

could cause more deadly forms of lung

1:04:49

cancer. So this whole

1:04:51

project of low tar cigarettes was really

1:04:53

shown to be essentially

1:04:56

a lie in the cigarette companies,

1:04:58

you know, as later emerged

1:05:01

as a result of lawsuits in the US, they knew this,

1:05:03

they knew this and eventually they were forced to change.

1:05:07

In China that is not the case. And

1:05:11

to this day, the sale

1:05:14

of low tar cigarettes, the sale of cigarettes

1:05:16

that China Tobacco Markets is being

1:05:18

less harmful to the public, that's

1:05:20

their core business strategy in

1:05:23

a lot of ways. Since Jude talked about

1:05:25

flavorings, it's common to

1:05:27

see China Tobacco cigarettes flavored

1:05:30

with Chinese medicinal herbs like ginseng

1:05:33

or caterpillar fungus. Yeah, Chiang Mai

1:05:35

Hai, a very popular brand. Right,

1:05:37

or the way they market, you mentioned Song Nan Hai,

1:05:40

one of the ways they market the cigarettes is they have

1:05:43

like the number five displayed

1:05:45

very prominently on them

1:05:47

and that's a reference to the tar

1:05:49

content and accuse the smoker, oh, there's

1:05:52

only five milligrams of tar, the cigarette, it's

1:05:54

not as harmful to me as another one, right?

1:05:57

So they're not making

1:05:58

very overt.

1:05:59

claims, but the messaging is

1:06:02

still there for the cigarette consumer.

1:06:05

And so what was so controversial about

1:06:07

this episode involving the tobacco

1:06:09

academician is that one of China

1:06:12

tobacco's own scientists, one of the guys

1:06:14

who's trying to research ways to make these so-called

1:06:17

low tar cigarettes is elected

1:06:19

to one of the most prestigious scientific

1:06:21

academies in China. And of course, other

1:06:24

scientists in the academy are

1:06:26

just horrified by this. And there's this huge

1:06:28

public outcry around his

1:06:30

election to this. He's criticized widely

1:06:33

in state media. There's even an editorial

1:06:35

by state media saying, this guy doesn't

1:06:38

belong. The science he does is not

1:06:40

helpful science. He's trying to sell

1:06:43

people cigarettes that give them cancer. So

1:06:45

there's this huge public outcry. He's

1:06:47

allowed to remain in the academy.

1:06:50

As Jude mentions, he writes this paper about

1:06:53

e-cigarettes that turns out to be very prescient

1:06:55

in how China tobacco needs to regulate them.

1:06:58

But one of the things to take away

1:07:00

from that episode, I think

1:07:02

that's important is that at that time, 2011, 2012, 2013, there

1:07:05

could be a really public discussion about this issue. And

1:07:10

this guy, he's still in the academy, but he

1:07:12

was publicly shamed, essentially, by

1:07:14

others in the media, by other

1:07:17

people in civil society criticizing him

1:07:19

in a way that I don't think

1:07:21

would be possible today in China.

1:07:24

Because the media is not able

1:07:27

to criticize somebody

1:07:30

who's part of the government in that way

1:07:33

as they are in civil society. Tobacco control

1:07:35

groups clearly don't feel

1:07:38

as free to criticize.

1:07:41

And even on an issue, most

1:07:43

of us wouldn't think of this as being a political issue.

1:07:46

But of course, of course it is

1:07:49

in some senses. But the restrictions on

1:07:51

civil society have really reached to the

1:07:53

tobacco control groups. And I think particularly

1:07:55

over the last five years, this is kind

1:07:58

of the core reason why China tobacco. has

1:08:00

been so ascended. Not only are they part

1:08:02

of the government, not only are they in the room

1:08:05

when the decisions about tobacco control

1:08:07

are being made, other people

1:08:10

who are arguing the other side have seen

1:08:12

their voices greatly diminish

1:08:15

both in the public sphere and behind

1:08:17

closed doors. Yes.

1:08:20

Wow. And I think similar things is

1:08:22

happening just like Jason said.

1:08:24

We could do nothing. For example,

1:08:27

these days when I was reading some

1:08:30

academic journals from the industry,

1:08:32

they they told

1:08:35

that they are going to incorporate

1:08:37

some

1:08:38

research about tobacco industry into

1:08:41

the national scientific funding.

1:08:45

So does

1:08:47

that make sense? So they are going to plan

1:08:49

some research about tobacco

1:08:51

in the national level in the national

1:08:54

funding. So I

1:08:56

think that's something the community should

1:08:58

be doing something, but actually

1:09:00

the community is doing nothing because

1:09:03

yeah. Depressing.

1:09:08

Well, you know, Jude, Jason, thank you so much for

1:09:10

taking the time. There is so much more

1:09:12

in the amazing

1:09:15

piece that you've worked on. It's at the Pulitzer

1:09:17

Center and there's actually

1:09:19

a couple of pieces in this series. I want

1:09:22

to encourage everyone to read them both. It's

1:09:24

called Smoking for the State. They probably

1:09:26

considered puffing for the party, but what's

1:09:29

smoking for the state? It's on the

1:09:31

Pulitzer Center website again. There's also a shorter

1:09:33

version that ran in the USA Today and you can find

1:09:35

it all on the examinations website

1:09:37

as well. We will be sure to put up links

1:09:40

for that. Meanwhile, let us move

1:09:42

on to recommendations. Just a very

1:09:44

quick reminder first that our next China

1:09:46

conference is just about six

1:09:48

weeks away. Have you gotten your ticket

1:09:50

yet? If not, then the full day conference

1:09:52

takes place on November 2nd. It includes quite

1:09:55

a few guests who frequent cynical listeners may

1:09:57

remember. Not only our keynote speaker,

1:10:00

Yasheng Huang, who I interviewed here about

1:10:02

three weeks ago, but also people like Dimitri

1:10:04

Savastopoulos from the

1:10:07

FT Ling Ling Wei from the

1:10:09

Wall Street Journal, Evan Feigenbaum,

1:10:12

who everyone knows here, he's been on the show many times,

1:10:15

and a panel that I am particularly excited

1:10:17

about, which will look at the mind of modern

1:10:19

China with two of the deepest

1:10:21

thinkers I know. We're going to get really philosophical,

1:10:24

Yizhe Ding from Northwestern University

1:10:26

and Tai Tzu Zhang from Yale. Night

1:10:29

one, the evening of November 1st, will

1:10:31

feature a live Seneca taping and a

1:10:33

dinner. It's a VIP event, but please

1:10:36

sign up for that as well. Seneca

1:10:38

is going to focus on China and the global south,

1:10:40

and who better than Eric Olander,

1:10:42

who runs the China Global South

1:10:45

Project and its podcast, which is part

1:10:47

of the Seneca Network, and Maria Repnikova

1:10:49

of Georgia Tech, who's been doing all sorts of really fascinating

1:10:52

work on Chinese soft power, focusing

1:10:54

on East Africa and especially on Ethiopia.

1:10:57

So check that out. You're not going to want to miss that. Get

1:11:00

a VIP ticket, not only to get priority

1:11:03

seating at any of our speaker sessions and workshops,

1:11:05

but also so you can join us on the

1:11:08

1st. Go to www.nextchinaconference.com

1:11:13

for more information. All right,

1:11:15

folks, I hope to see you there, but let's move on

1:11:17

to recommendations. Jude, what

1:11:19

do you have for us? Why don't you start?

1:11:21

Yes, I would recommend

1:11:23

a book named Zhang Chengqiao, 1949

1:11:26

and Beyond. You know, Zhang Chengqiao

1:11:30

was the leader of

1:11:32

the Chinese Community Party during the Cultural Revolution,

1:11:34

and this book tells

1:11:37

the story of

1:11:39

the Cultural Revolution, this 10-year period,

1:11:42

and from the perspective of

1:11:44

Zhang Chengqiao.

1:11:46

It was written by Zheng Zhong,

1:11:49

who worked for a Wenhui newspaper in Shanghai.

1:11:54

At that time, Zheng Zhong was a house

1:11:56

correspondent, just

1:11:59

like me. and he

1:12:01

told a very fascinating

1:12:04

story about John Chintel and this

1:12:06

Tien Year. And I

1:12:08

picked this book because it's

1:12:10

also a reminder for me that although

1:12:14

as

1:12:15

journalists being in a difficult environment

1:12:18

may be our misfortune

1:12:21

but it makes our responsibility to

1:12:24

document even more important. Sometimes

1:12:27

we should just go beyond our

1:12:29

personal reporting feel too regrettable

1:12:31

of what we experience. That

1:12:34

is happening. We should be able to view issues

1:12:36

from a broader standpoint I

1:12:38

think.

1:12:39

John Chintel for those of you who don't know

1:12:42

who he is, I mean he's most famous as one

1:12:44

of the gang of four along with Yao

1:12:46

Yun-en and Wang Wun and of course

1:12:48

Zhang Qing. So

1:12:51

I've never read that book. Is it in

1:12:53

English or is

1:12:54

it in... I searched a lot on

1:12:57

the internet but I didn't find an English

1:13:00

version so I guess it's not translated.

1:13:03

So Zhang Qing Chiao by Jun Zhong

1:13:06

formerly of the Hui Ba. Very very good recommendation.

1:13:09

Thanks thanks excellent excellent. And

1:13:11

Jason what do you have for us? Yeah

1:13:14

my recommendation is going to be a little

1:13:17

less intellectual than Jute so I

1:13:19

am a big fan of this series

1:13:22

called Top Boy which

1:13:24

is a British crime drama originally

1:13:27

aired on Channel 4 I think in the UK. Now

1:13:30

it's part of Netflix but it's a

1:13:32

great great great crime series

1:13:34

great drama if you like The Wire, if you

1:13:36

like Narcos. It gives

1:13:38

you a lot of insight into you know sort

1:13:41

of a different walk of life that people have

1:13:43

in London and

1:13:46

it's a really gripping personal story

1:13:48

I feel like so my recommendation is Top

1:13:51

Boy. Yeah I started

1:13:53

it I got one episode in and I got distracted

1:13:55

by something else but that's a great reminder to go

1:13:57

back to it because I really liked it it was very good.

1:14:01

Definitely watch it with the subtitles on. That's

1:14:03

right. There are a lot of Jamaican West Indian accents

1:14:06

that can be challenging for people who

1:14:08

aren't used to them. Exactly. Yeah.

1:14:12

But excellent, excellent recommendation. Thanks. Alright,

1:14:15

mine is the music of Florence

1:14:18

Price, who was an American composer

1:14:20

who died in 1953. And

1:14:23

I was not really familiar with much of her stuff

1:14:25

at all until the Philadelphia Orchestra

1:14:28

came to town and played a couple of her pieces,

1:14:31

including her symphony number three. I was

1:14:33

just floored at how

1:14:35

beautiful, how moving that third

1:14:38

symphony is. I've since now gotten her

1:14:40

first and her fourth. Her second is missing. And

1:14:44

all the other available music that is there.

1:14:48

I would highly recommend the Philadelphia Orchestra's 2021

1:14:52

recording of her symphony, number

1:14:54

one, number three. They won a Grammy for

1:14:56

that. It's just an exquisite recording

1:14:59

and just beautiful composition. Her

1:15:02

story is crazy. I mean, she's

1:15:05

an African-American composer doing

1:15:08

modern classical music and

1:15:11

really weaving in African-American

1:15:13

music in kind of the same

1:15:15

way that Slavic

1:15:18

music was weaved in some

1:15:20

of my favorite composers in

1:15:23

Central Eastern Europe beginning mid-century

1:15:26

in the 19th century. But the

1:15:29

story of the rediscovery of so

1:15:31

much of her music after 2009. So

1:15:34

in 2009, there was this dilapidated

1:15:36

house in some rural town, it

1:15:39

was called St. Anne or something like that, in

1:15:41

Illinois, where she was

1:15:44

using this as a summer house. And

1:15:46

they discovered this gigantic cache

1:15:49

of her hitherto unknown

1:15:51

works, including one

1:15:55

of her symphonies. And there

1:15:59

was the fourth symphony. and two

1:16:01

violin concertos and dozens

1:16:04

of other really great pieces. So

1:16:06

again, I would recommend that you start with

1:16:09

the Philadelphia Orchestra's 2021 recording of

1:16:12

Symphony I and Symphony III. And

1:16:16

boy, is it good. Just

1:16:19

reminds me that I don't listen to enough

1:16:21

contemporary classical music. Anyway,

1:16:25

Jason, Jude, thank you once again. What a fantastic

1:16:28

conversation and congratulations on

1:16:30

this excellent piece. Thanks so much for having

1:16:32

us. Yeah, thanks. A real pleasure

1:16:35

making both your acquaintance. Jude, Jason,

1:16:37

I hope you come back and please keep me

1:16:39

apprised of future collaborations and

1:16:42

more work that you do on health-related

1:16:45

issues in China. Will do. Thanks

1:16:48

again. The Seneca Podcast is powered by The China Project

1:16:50

and is a proud part of the Seneca Network. Our

1:16:53

show is produced and edited by me, Kaiser Glohe.

1:16:55

We would be delighted if you would drop us an email at

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seneca at thechinaproject.com or

1:17:00

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1:17:03

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1:17:11

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1:17:13

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1:17:16

Thanks for listening. See you next time. Bye.

1:17:26

Bye.