Crimes which merit capital punishment in China include treason, murder, corruption, drug-traffiking and occasionally even wildlife poaching. Yet despite the broad reach of the law here, the true extent of the death penalty in China remains one of the country's most tightly-guarded state secrets. And yet China's reliance on the death penalty has waned in recent years, as the Chinese government has instituted significant legal reforms. But how significant? And how many people are still executed each year?Joining Kaiser Kuo to discuss these questions is Gady Epstein, the Beijing bureau chief for Forbes magazine. We are also pleased to welcome Joshua Rosenzweig, the Senior Manager of Research for the the Duihua Foundation in Hong Kong. A former academic who is fluent in mandarin, Joshua has been researching human rights issues with the foundation since joining it in 2002.On a practical note, we've been traveling and are sorry to be a bit late getting Sinica out the door this week. But it's a good opportunity for a reminder. If you enjoy the Sinica podcast, subscribe to us through RSS and be notified automatically whenever a new show is released. Just open up iTunes click on the "Advanced" menu and select the option "Subscribe to Podcast". When prompted, copy the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica into that box. You can also download this mp3 directly from our site as a standalone mp3 file. Enjoy!
richard
said on September 19, 2010
very informative and interesting podcast. i can see why PopUp chinese likes Sinica. the present chinese penal system(with death penalty) should be introduce in Canada for deterrent and economic reasons. if you want to know why the soft humanitarian treatment just does not work research the weak penal system in my country.
helen.wallimann
said on September 22, 2010
Richard, having the death penalty has never solved problems of criminality. See the US which has a much higher criminal rate than European countries which have all abolished capital punishment. Of course it's much simpler to advocate strong penal measures rather than try to remedy the causes of crime. Another question: Could you really bear to see a person being executed, even someone really wicked?
chadyanpitre
said on September 22, 2010
@helen,
I am all for fighting root causes, but as richard's fellow countryman, I can also attest the soft hand does NOT help.
And yes, there are some people out there in the world that I could actually watch being put down. Sorry.
Chad
安迪
said on September 22, 2010
Just to throw in another point...in the case of a person who has murdered and has no hope (assuming that we can reasonably determine that), it seems that we really have no choice. We either "support the death penalty" and thus put said person to death, or we are "against the death penalty" and thus potentially end up with someone else getting killed by said person at some point in the future. Which one is morally wrong?
安迪
said on September 22, 2010
I'll add one more point, just to see it from the other side. Once the root causes have had their effect, I'll grant that the death penalty is unlikely to work as a deterrent. It may be an appropriate form of punishment, especially for safety reasons, but solving the problem of crime seems to be a larger problem than the death penalty issue itself. Fighting root causes is probably a more effective place to start in that regard.
Hmmm...interesting to think about.
