On March 31, a woman trying to persuade a man not to smoke at a restaurant in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, sparked a heated debate on social media platforms. The man did not accept her appeal and instead replied by spilling an unknown liquid onto her. With the mediation of the police, he apologized and paid 1,000 yuan ($152.8) for her dry cleaning.

Responding to the issue, the Chinese Association of Tobacco Control gave the woman a thumbs-up on a social media platform and said that secondhand smoke contains at least 69 carcinogens.

By February, over 20 cities in China, including Beijing, Shenzhen, and Qingdao, had banned smoking indoors and some outdoor places under local laws. Although Chengdu had issued a draft on smoking control in public places in 2019, this has not yet been formally introduced.

In addition to speeding up the legislation, there should be other supplementary measures in place. For instance, passengers who smoke on high-speed trains or in smoke-free zones of other trains will be barred from train travel for a consecutive 180 days.

This is an edited excerpt of an article originally published in Guancha.gmw.cn on April 2    

(Print Edition Title: Building Smoke-Free Cities)