I'd imagine a factor in the rising rates in developing nations is the due to the fact that 40%+ of global tobacco sales come from state owned firms. China's state owned China Tobacco company is the world's largest tobacco company and earns profits in excess of $16 Billion annually. Very little incentive to cut smoking rates when smoking is contributing billions to state coffers.

That’s a very good point, but of course the government is going to have to pay in some fashion for the health impacts of smoking. It’s sort of a weird situation for a government to be in, making profit from tobacco and shouldering the inevitable externalities. I don’t know the specifics of how that breaks down though, or if it’s still a net profit center.

Of course it may not matter in the sense that cronyism could ensure the burdens are placed on one group, and the benefits concentrated in another. I don’t know enough about China though, to say more.

But that seems to support the correlation between marketing spend and smoking, since marketing is banned in the US but legal elsewhere right?