Microsoft founder Bill Gates appears in a cameo role in a Chinese anti-smoking video, part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation campaign against passive smoking on social media.

China remains to be the country that has the most number of smokers - more than 300 million of them - while another 740 million are exposed to second-hand smoke each year, according to data from the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China.

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In 2011, Bill Gates stood with Baidu CEO Robin Li in Beijing to launch an anti-smoking campaign, saying people in China should be say no to passive smoking. They wore green T-shirts with the campaign slogan Say No to Passive Smoking, coined by Gates.

On Wednesday, Olympic gold medallist Feng Zhe released his song "Say No to Passive Smoking" as part of the campaign also financed by a number of Chinese philanthropists. Bill Gates appears in the video wearing a T-shirt bearing the words of the song title in Chinese.

Yang Jianyue, deputy director of the Gates Foundation in China, said the song is the latest initiative in a social media campaign that began in October. The foundation has joined with social media and philanthropic partners in calling on netizens to submit witty sayings against secondhand smoke.

The campaign's micro blog has received more than 40 million hits, with tens of thousands of people voicing their support for the initiative in its first two weeks, Yang said.

Angela Pratt of the World Health Organization Tobacco Free Initiative in China says tobacco control needs social media "where you can have other people talking for you and becoming part of the solution."

"Smoking is not cool, while smoking control can be cool and dynamic," Pratt said.

The UN health body in China will broadcast anti-smoking videos submitted by contestants from both China and the United States through online outlets, including its own Sina Weibo account next week.

Viewers can vote for their favourite videos online, and the winners will be eligible for interships at WHO.

China is preparing its first national regulation to control smoking in public smoking. A draft started circulating on Monday for the public to comment on. Part of the draft proposes a 100 percent ban on smoking in indoor public areas. 

TagsBill Gates, Peng Liyuan, Melinda Gates, No Smoking