Baidu (BIDU.NASDAQ) CEO Robin Li and Microsoft (MSFT.NYSE, MSFT.NASDAQ) founder Bill Gates announced on Saturday a campaign to help smokers in China quit, the Wall Street Journal reported. The new initiative, with the Chinese-language slogan “Say no to forced smoking,” looks to help current smokers quit and encourages non-smokers to ask others not to smoke around them. China’s Ministry of Health decreed a ban on indoor smoking in May, but a lack of enforcement and clear guidelines sapped the effectiveness of the program. Gates praised the move, but said that “[t]he greatest thing would be a grassroots sense that people don’t want forced smoking.” About a quarter of Chinese people smoke, and reports estimate that around a million Chinese people die each year from tobacco-related causes.
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