From my time in China, I would say that the anti-spitting campaign was either not successful or not long-lived. I would routinely encounter spit on the streets

From my time in China, I would say that the anti-spitting campaign was either not successful or not long-lived. I would routinely encounter spit on the streets or sidewalks, and would hear the telltale sound of spitting about a dozen times a day. Considering the air quality, I can't really blame them -- I felt the urge to do so quite often, and only held myself back because I didn't want to cultivate a habit that could be potentially embarrassing upon returning to the States. (I will also mention that of course this is mere anecdote, I was in China from 2011 to 2012 and don't have firsthand knowledge of how much spitting there was before the Olympics, and I was generally in a "third-tier" city in Guangxi province, rather than in Beijing.)