China on Friday amended its tobacco monopoly law to include e-cigarettes, stepping up regulation of the fast-growing vaping industry in the world’s largest tobacco market.
The Cabinet order, published on the Chinese government’s Web site and signed off by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強), takes effect immediately.
A number of Chinese e-cigarette companies have been set up in the past few years to tap into domestic sales potential, among them market leader RLX Technology Inc (霧芯科技).
Photo: Reuters
Warning: Smoking can damage your health
RLX said on WeChat that it would heed the rules and make required changes.
Chinese regulators in March flagged plans to bring the rules governing the sale of e-cigarettes and other new tobacco products into line with those for ordinary cigarettes.
They had previously been in a regulatory gray area.
China’s tobacco industry is controlled entirely by a government monopoly, and strict controls determine which companies and retailers can produce and sell cigarettes.
The government outlawed the sale of e-cigarettes to minors in 2018 and banned online sales the following year, while Chinese state media have warned of the health and safety risks of using the products.
Separately, the Chinese State Administration for Market Regulation proposed new rules that would increase online advertising oversight, including stipulating that advertisements should not affect normal Internet use or mislead users.
This year, Chinese authorities have tightened regulation across a range of industries, with an emphasis on technology.
Internet advertising must “meet the requirements for the establishment of socialist spiritual civilization and the promotion of excellent traditional culture of the Chinese nation,” the agency said.
The proposed rules call on platforms to establish a system for registering and reviewing advertisers and adverts, and “monitor and inspect the content of advertisements displayed and published by using its information services.”
The proposed rules also call for bans on advertisements aimed at minors promoting medical treatments, cosmetics and online games “that are not conducive to the physical and mental health of minors.”
The proposed rules are open for public comment until Dec. 25, the agency said on its Web site.
Search giant Baidu Inc (百度) and game publisher Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) said in their quarterly results that the short-term outlook for advertising sales looked weak due to fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and China’s regulatory crackdown.
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to