China: Executions and Death Vans - Leading the World in Capital Punishment

The world of politics is ever changing and always present. It is the study and discipline of discovering and analyzing the world's relationships in governing powers and people. Politics focuses on many different fields of emphasis and examination such as international, comparative, and local. These fields discuss different issues and policies while trying to objectively make conclusions about the best form of the policy or theory. The policy that will be discussed within this scope of research is the People's Republic of China and their policy and practice of capital punishment.

In a report by Amnesty International a worldwide non-governmental organization, in 2006 China's People's Republic of China or PRC is reported to have used capital punishment or a death-sentence in executing over 1,010 citizens. This number is considered to be much to low by the organization and they believe that the number of executions is considerably closer to 7,500 to 8,000 people. The exact number is not known to the public because it is considered a state secret by the government (Amnesty International, 2007).

The most common form of capital punishment is the use of firearms. A semi-automatic weapon is generally used with a hollow-point shell used to then expand upon impact. This process of capital punishment is the most economic and used for all but the most prestigious executions. For executions of convicts with higher political, economic, or social status lethal injections are used. These two forms of capital punishment can be both brutal and extreme to many citizens of western countries but difficult to gauge in the PRC. In comparison the United States does not use firearms but most commonly uses electrocution and lethal injections.

The problem with capital punishment is one based on the many diverse theories of human rights. In the PRC much of recent discussion by the international community is upon the problems with their human rights policies. The PRC officials insist that human rights are available to all and improving. An example of the controversy with PRC's human rights issues with capital punishment is shown in the recent USA Today article which was published by Calum Macleod about the rise of China's new invention designed towards increasing the efficiency of executions. This comes in the new Jinguan Automobile Death Van. This article again pulls attention to the PRC and the human rights of its forms of capital punishment. The article presented that the People's Republic of China recently released forty vans that were equipped to execute prisoners on site or wherever available. The prisoners would receive lethal injections in the van under what the PRC is now calling a much more humane circumstance. The van's designer Kang Zhongwen said that the move to the new vans shows that the People's Republic of China "promotes human rights now." The use of lethal injections is believed to be by many the step in the right direction in an already in-humane practice (MacLeod, 2006).

Many believe that the increase in lethal injection is due to the usefulness of the organs of those executed. The skeptics believe that the PRC is obtaining the organs from those lethally injected to be sold within the PRC of throughout the world. This accusation is not backed by any evidence but rather much speculation and rumors of what could be true or another myth about the Communist governed People's Republic of China.

A larger reform in the People's Republic of China's capital punishment system is that the Chinese National Supreme Court will be reviewing every death sentence case. This is believed to give the judicial system greater transparency. Previously the Provincial High courts were the last courts to hear the cases and decided judgments. The Chinese National Supreme Court will also hear all appeals to the capital punishment cases rather than the Provincial courts. This could continue to help the PRC reform there system of capital punishment (Embassy of the PRC, 2007).

The People's Republic of China has stated that because of the death penalty it has strengthened the citizen's resolve to not commit crime because of the immediate and impending punishments. They also believe that since such actions have been taking place that crimes have gone down and remained low. These statements by the People's Republic of China are not supported by facts or statistics as the information is a secret of the state (Embassy of the PRC, 2007).

Whether you feel that capital punishment should be abolished in every nation of the world or that it is a necessary part of our societies, it is apparent that things are changing in the PRC. With people beginning to speak out about the subject and with the governments help in reforming it's judicial system, things will get better, even if slightly.

The study then of politics in China is a difficult one. With limited knowledge of actual events and statistics it is difficult to properly analyze the current situation in the PRC. We can not tell if it is humane, judicially correct, or acceptable but we do know that it is changing. As always in political science, we will later see if for the better.