The 2012 Cancer Registry Annual Report, published by the China Tumor Cases Registration Center earlier this year, said that on average 7,300 people die from cancer on the Chinese mainland every day. That works out more than 2.6 million deaths annually.

Lung cancer tops the list in China in terms of the rate of incidence and deaths. The disease is fatal for approximately 26 percent of people who contract it, that's almost double the number of deaths attributable to liver cancer, the number two killer.

Zhou Qi, a deputy to the National People's Congress and president of Chongqing Cancer Hospital, said environmental protection programs have taken a long time to show a significant improvement.