全球烟草行业都十分强大，而中国的烟草业则超级强大。中国烟草总公司(CNTC)是全球最大的卷烟生产商。
由美国癌症协会(American Cancer Society)和世界肺健基金会(World Lung Foundation)发布的《烟草图册》(The Tobacco Atlas)显示，中国烟草总公司控制着全球卷烟市场32%的市场份额，几乎与二、三号烟草业巨头——菲利普莫里斯国际(Philip Morris International)和英美烟草(British American Tobacco)——合计控制的市场份额一样多。令人意想不到的是，全球公共健康游说活动已在中国取得了长足进展。
香港医生朱迪思•麦凯(Judith Mackay)记得，自己曾在1987年出席过一次关于烟草及其对健康影响的会议。由于上述话题被认为过于敏感，那次会议不得不在一个土气的二线城市（而不是首都北京）召开。长期以来，国有的中国烟草总公司一直是纳税和就业大户。
自那时起，情况就变得愈发令人鼓舞。麦凯记得早先曾与中国烟草总公司一位高管交谈过，那位高官告诉她：“我们就是个政府部门。如果每个人都不再吸烟，我只需调到另一个政府部门工作。”
二十多年后的今天，禁烟人士已在中国政府内部争取到许多盟友，他们都对吸烟的长期经济成本了如指掌。但在这段时间里，中国烟草业的野心越来越大，也越来越狡猾。
在首个中文版《烟草图册》的发布会上，站在麦凯医生身旁的中国疾病控制预防中心(Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention)副主任杨功焕，对中国烟草专卖行业规避健康警示准则、吸引新一代烟民（尤其是女性烟民）的能力哀叹不已。在谈到自己老奸巨猾的国有对手时，她表示：“他们时而是政府，时而是企业。”
仅全球人口增长这一个因素，就应当能够确保烟民总数最早要到2040年才会下降。麦凯慨叹道：“在我有生之年，中国一个烟农也不会失业。我保证。”
译者/汪洋
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001034296
There is Big Tobacco and then, in China, there is very, very Big Tobacco. The China National Tobacco Corp is the world’s largest cigarette maker.
According to the Tobacco Atlas, published by the American Cancer Society and World Lung Foundation, CNTC controls 32 per cent of the global cigarette market - almost as much as the No 2 and 3 companies, Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco, combined. Surprisingly, the global public health lobby has come a long way in China.
Judith Mackay, a Hong Kong-based doctor, remembers attending a 1987 meeting about tobacco and its health effects that had to be held in a drab second-tier city rather than Beijing, the capital, because the subject was deemed to be too sensitive. State-owned CNTC has long been a major taxpayer and employer.
More encouragingly from that period, Mackay remembers an early conversation with a senior CNTC executive who told her: “We’re just a government department. If everyone stops smoking I’ll just go work for a different government department.”
Twenty-odd years later anti-tobacco campaigners have plenty of Chinese government allies, who are all too well aware of the long-term economic costs of smoking. But over that period the Chinese tobacco industry’s ambitions - and sophistication - have also grown.
Appearing alongside Dr Mackay at the launch of the Tobacco Atlas’ first Chinese edition, Yang Gonghuan, deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, rued the ability of China’s tobacco monopoly to skirt health-warning guidelines and recruit a new generation of smokers, especially women. “Sometimes they are the government, sometimes they are a company,” Yang said of her wily state-owned adversary.
Global population growth alone should ensure the overall number of smokers does not decline until 2040 at the earliest. As Mackay ruefully puts it: “There will not be a single Chinese tobacco farmer out of business in my lifetime. I guarantee it.”
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