ChinaWatch: Smoking Into Space

Welcome to ChinaWatch, WMB’s digest of news from the country with the world’s second largest economy and our chief rival to global dominance. Our aim is to keep you informed.



Smoking Stamped Out

A smoking ban is now in effect in most public places in China, a move that health experts say will help raise awareness of the dangers of smoking in a country where tobacco use is deeply ingrained.

There is a lack of public awareness of the health risks of smoking in China.

The World Health Organization says seven out of 10 non-smoking adults in the East Asian nation are exposed to second-hand smoke each week. Smokers light up in elevators and offices, and even in hospital waiting rooms.

With the new ban, the country’s estimated 300 million smokers will no longer be allowed to puff their cigarettes in what the Chinese government is calling “enclosed public places.”

These include hotels, restaurants, theaters and public transport waiting rooms. The ban does not cover offices or factories.

Hong Kong University School of Public Health Director Tai Hing Lam says the ban will be effective in informing the public about the dangers of smoking.

“With this new legislation, this will promote awareness, and that is a major step,” Lam says.

He says non-smoking Chinese, who make up the majority of the population, should understand second-hand smoke is harmful to their health. He hopes the new ban will help encourage them to ask for more smoke free places.

“Non smokers at the moment are too passive, let us put it that way, because they’re so used to being exposed,” he says. “So, they do not realize that they have the right to demand it (smoke free places). Now, the law actually empowers them.”

Stepping Into Space

China may fly a woman astronaut into space next year as it embarks on an ambitious program for the next decade which includes a mission to land a rover on the moon and setting up a space station with a cargo spaceship to transport supplies.

China plans to fly two more spacecraft next year to improve the rendezvous and docking technologies and one of it will be a manned one, says Yang Liwei, deputy director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office, hinting it could as well be a woman.

China plans to carry out its first space docking between two unmanned vehicles this year, followed by one manned and one unmanned space missions next year as part of its efforts to set up a space station.

“Two to three astronauts will be sent to space in that manned mission next year,” he was quoted by the state-run China Daily as saying.

Fei Junlong, leader of China's astronaut team, says the two women astronauts and five men astronauts – the second batch of Chinese astronauts, who were selected last year – have to take a three-year training course before carrying out space missions.

But Yang says there are possibilities for the women to join next year's mission.

The two women astronauts, both pilots from the People's Liberation Army Air Force, are the first women astronauts in China. The 14 astronauts in the first batch, who were recruited in 1997, are all men.

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ChinaWatch: Dell Digs Market

Welcome to ChinaWatch, WMB’s digest of news from the country with the world’s second largest economy and our chief rival to global dominance. Our aim is to keep you informed.

Ban On Butts

China, the world's largest tobacco producer and home to 300 million smokers, will impose a national ban on lighting up in hotels, restaurants, shopping malls and other indoor public spaces, according to the Health Ministry.

The new rules, which take effect May 1 and spell out provisions for educating people about the dangers of tobacco, include restrictions on vending machines and on outdoor smoking that affects pedestrians.

But the regulations have considerable loopholes.

They do not cover factories, offices or government workplaces and they lack specific guidelines for penalizing those who violate them. That has prompted shrugs among devoted smokers, many of whom have learned to ignore no-smoking signs in hospital waiting areas, gymnasium locker rooms and lifts.

“Chinese people, including most government officials, are just too in love with their cigarettes to pay attention to such a law,” says Liu Bailing, a 28-year-old bank employee who dined beneath a cloud of smoke at a restaurant.

His complaint was not without reason. In the nearly three years since Beijing required restaurants and bars to provide non-smoking sections, most smokers have continued to puff away just about everywhere.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that a survey of households last year showed that less than a quarter of adults believed smoking caused strokes, heart attacks and lung cancer, and only a quarter believed exposure to smoke caused those illnesses in children.

While acknowledging the challenges of enforcing the new ban, anti-smoking advocates in China hailed it as a first step to weaning the nation off tobacco, which health officials say kills more than 1.2 million Chinese a year.

China has among the world's highest smoking rates, with nearly a third of all adults, 300 million people, lighting up. It is the biggest producer and consumer of tobacco products.

Dell Courts China

Texas-based computer maker Dell Inc. is building another manufacturing center in China.

The new plant in Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan, is Dell’s second in China after opening its Xiamen base in the eastern province of Fujian, Chinese officials say.

The manufacturing plant, which was announced by Round Rock-based Dell in September 2010, is expected to produce its first products during the fourth quarter.

The groundbreaking in China comes amid announcements by CEO Michael Dell that the company plans to invest more in its operations in India and it opened a research and development center in Israel.

Dell, the No. 2 computer maker in the world, employs about 14,000 workers in Central Texas.

In September 2010, Dell officials announced plans to expand its plant in China with 500 additional workers and open a second manufacturing plant in Western China.

They say the decision was prompted by the surging business in China, which after the United States is the company’s second-largest market.

Dell’s second Chinese manufacturing plant is expected to employ 3,000 workers. The company also plans to invest more than $100 billion in China during the next 10 years, officials say.

Last year’s announcement about China came one week after Dell disclosed it was completing closure of a manufacturing plant in North Carolina which once employed nearly 1,000 workers.

The company subsequently confirmed the jobs were being outsourced to Mexico and other countries.

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