One of the joys of authoritarian government is having the power to order hoi polloi to do what’s good for them – or else. So why is China still smoking?

The west has spent most of my lifetime trying to tackle this problem: I was born around the time of the invention of second-hand smoke, but I was middle-aged by the time anyone took it seriously. Beijing doesn’t have that kind of time: more than 1m people a year are already dying from smoking, and that’s just the beginning. Many of those who started puffing when China began to get rich 30-odd years ago are only now starting to fall ill. And with cigarettes still costing as little as 50p a pack, even the most impecunious mainlander can afford enough smokes to kill them.

But Beijing knows it can’t pay the medical bills of the 300m who already smoke, let alone those coming up through the ranks. So it is finally trying to force more people to stop smoking – starting with government officials. They are no longer allowed to smoke in government offices, schools, hospitals or on public transport; and they aren’t allowed to use public money to give each other cigarettes as gifts (one of the most popular ways for civil servants to bribe each other). Every doctor in China has been ordered to ask every patient whether they smoke – and help with smoking cessation (a task made more difficult by the fact that 40-50 per cent of male doctors in China are themselves smokers).