The findings, released by the World Health Organisation on Tuesday, are from a tobacco survey conducted in China in 2010 by the centers for disease control and prevention in China, the United States and the WHO.

Around 100,000 people die from exposure to second-hand smoke in China each year, in addition to an estimated 1 million people who die from direct tobacco consumption.

Women in rural areas of China were more affected, with almost 3 in every 4 exposed to second-hand smoke at home, compared to just over half in urban areas.

“There is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke. Creating 100 percent smoke-free environments is the only way to protect people from the harmful effects of second-hand tobacco smoke,” said Michael O’Leary, WHO representative in China.

“Tobacco use and second-hand smoke exposure in reproductive-aged women can cause adverse reproductive health outcomes, such as pregnancy complications, fetal growth restriction, preterm delivery, stillbirths, and infant death.”

About a quarter of China’s 1.3 billion people are smokers, or about as many people as there are in the United States. But the country is gradually becoming more aware of this public health problem.

The Ministry of Health warned in May that more than 3 million Chinese would die of smoking-related illnesses annually by 2050 if nothing is done to curb this habit.

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Li, set to succeed Wen Jiabao as premier early next year, could boost his reputation as a populist leader and deflect criticism from rivals if his younger brother, Li Keming, is transferred from his position as deputy director at China’s State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, Cheng Li, a Brookings senior fellow, wrote in a report. He said Li Keming’s prominent role in the agency that runs the world’s biggest tobacco company may have set back efforts to control tobacco in the country.

Public opinion in China is becoming more important on social issues including health, environmental protection and food safety, Brookings’s Li said today. China has more than 300 million smokers, and at least 1.2 million die from smoking- related diseases each year, a figure set to rise to 2 million a year by 2020, according to the report, released two weeks before China begins a once-a-decade leadership transition.

“In all these areas, I think leaders should set examples,” Brookings’s Li said in an interview. “Particularly now that many countries, including Russia and India, are paying more attention to public health issues.”

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