Death Penalty in People ’ s Republic of China : Quo Vadis ?

According to Amnesty International's most recent death penalty report, "The Death Penalty Worldwide: Developments in 2005," four nations accounted for 94% of the 2,148 recorded executions carried out around the world in 2005, Those four nations are China 1(1,770), Iran (94), Saudi Arabia (86), and the United States (60). That is to say, China executes more people every year than the rest of the world combined. Of the only 22 countries with actual executions in 2005, China stands for the worst image with overwhelmingly biggest number of executions2. As an ancient civilized nation, China is notorious for the rampant execution of capital punishment. The issue of death penalty has become an Achilles’ heel in the construction of rule of law in China. With the enlightenment of human right thoughts and influence of the global tide of death penalty reform, more and more Chinese elites realized the irrationality of death penalty and rounds of debates on restriction and abolition of capital punishment are initiated in recent years. Although the justifications for preserving death penalty have been challenged and criticized, the cry of abolishing is still very weak in the whole society of China and the overwhelming majority of citizens place overdue expectations on the death penalty in coping with the social problems. As far as the abolition of death penalty is concerned, the cornerstone of social culture in current China is not in favor of abolition of death penalty and it will not be eliminated completely in a short time because of the absence of favorable social conditions. The consensus reached at present time is that the death penalty will be preserved but strictly restricted currently although it should be completely abolished in the future in China. This paper is to review the status quo of death penalty in China and analyze the missions China should undertake in the purpose of reducing and complete eliminating death penalty in China.