China’s Premier Wen Jia Bao promised a “smoke free” Olympics. Having been in the country for the past couple of weeks, there are certainly no signs of this taking hold. On trains most people smoke outside of the carriages, but the other day there was a guy puffing away right where I was sitting on the train. The smoke seemed to linger for ages in the carriage.

In August smoking will be banned in public places including hotels heritage sites and government offices. Fines for ignoring the ban are a measly 50RMB - hardly making it a deterrent.

According to City Weekend magazine, China’s first smoke-free restaurant chain, Meizhou Dongpo went out of business after implementing a smoking ban.

China could well do look at Thailand which just recently implemented a smoking ban in air-conditioned buildings. I was in the country when the ban took place and because of the possibility of heavy fines, all of the places I saw had created a separate smoking room for patrons and workers were actively policing the ban.