A total of 320 million adults, 31 percent of the adult population, smoke in China, more than the total number of people in the United States, chinanews.com report Friday.

According to research among Chinese adults by Gallup Inc, 31 percent of adults are smokers in China and 3 percent of them are women.

The 2011 research said that 3,000 people die of smoking-related diseases every day in China. And the figure may reach to 8,000 by the year 2050.

China makes one third of the world’s smokers, with the second highest smoking rate in Asia, following Indonesia, according to the survey.

A national regulation banning indoor smoking took effect on May 1, but it has been derided as being too weak because of a lack of penalties.