China: Unequaled executionists

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China executed more people in the last three months than the rest of the world did in the past three years, the human rights group Amnesty International says.

China's executions

Death penalty crimes
Violent crime
Drugs offences
Separatism
Aiding Tibet border crossings
Bribery
Pimping
Embezzlement
Tax fraud
Insurance fraud
Stealing petrol
Selling harmful foodstuffs
Disrupting the stock market

What is this!?! They have a surplus of people? What an irreverant perspective on human life. A panicked death grip on society?

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Oy, executions for enablers of SARS. Who's going to spread it on purpose?

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0503/16sarsmain.html

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Also from littlek's first link . . .

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The report was released one week before the International Olympic Committee votes on whether Beijing will host the 2008 Summer Olympics

See, it's like this - they want to tidy up those loose ends before being scrutinized by the entire world during the games. You just gotta have the right frame of mind.

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Just like Turkey killing and emprisoning all those kurds before the EU decided on whether they could join or not..... sigh.

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Littlek,

Seems to me you are an active commentator on Aisian politics. Have seen quite a lot of topics you have posted on several sections on this forum.

Yes, China government is not justified to mete out cruel punishments to a wide range of felonies some of which, some think, seems to be just "travial crimes". By western ideology and principles, the administration of law in China is reprehensible for its inhumanity. The problem, however, with respect to the law system in China is not that of means of punishment but of the justness of legal verdicts. If critics is fixed upon the former, the most important problem regarding the China law system is understated. It counts for nothing if the verdicts in the first hand are legally unjust, however human and jurisprudentially correct the legal punishments are.

Empirical evidences show that China 's law system flaws - for the most part - in the justness of verdicts. Legal verdicts were terribly arbitrary and insufficiently evidence-founded. The past several decades see a great number of heartbreaks because of unjust verdicts delivered by courts of law in China.

And here I've got a good reason accounting for the cruelty of legal punishments in China. Obviously a modern state has to have a population firmly convinced of the supremacy of law. As transition takes hold in China in terms of economic capability, the conviction that law is the ultimate arbitrator in the society is conducive to the modernization of the country. Instilling in people the conviction of law supremacy can to some extent be achieved through the terror of cruel legal punishment which will gradually be internalized into the reverence for law.

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acepoly wrote:

... the conviction that law is the ultimate arbitrator in the society is conducive to the modernization of the country. Instilling in people the conviction of law supremacy can to some extent be achieved through the terror of cruel legal punishment which will gradually be internalized into the reverence for law.

What a strange rationalization, terrorize the people for their own good.

The idea that citizens' "... terror of cruel legal punishment...will gradually be internalized into the reverence for law", is analogous to the mental mechanism that we call "Identification with the aggressor". It's a phenomenon seen in abused children and also in kidnap victims.
It is as seen as psychopathology that emerges from cruelty.

What a way to build a humane society!

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Here in the United States we believe in more just things.
Whoever spends the money to get a good lawyer is "innocent".

This is far more humanitarian and eloquent than the stern, broad application of local laws. It respects ones earning power, and motivates the population to struggle harder to attain money.

A country that defines its own laws and punishments and enforces them vigorously according to their own values, situation, and resources will not get any sympathy from Americans.

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jjorge wrote:

Quote:

The idea that citizens' "... terror of cruel legal punishment...will gradually be internalized into the reverence for law", is analogous to the mental mechanism that we call "Identification with the aggressor". It's a phenomenon seen in abused children and also in kidnap victims.

If your analogy is taken to have some advantage to illustrate the legal situation of China, I would like to ask why this identification is not good in and of itself. To clarify one significant difference between this analogue and "cruel punishment" in China, the identification with law accrues to the long-run benefits of the whole population while that with the aggressor not necessarily so.

The conception of rule of law does need people's identification with it. Although the unique historical contingency brought to the western world some creative ideas to build certain institutions that have been playing an indispensable role in administering justice, the ultimate guarantee for the conception of rule of law to take root is, however, the universal identification with law. For any man-made institution to defend justice, there must exist some inherent breaches that are beyond the reach of human intellectuality. However rationally a political or a legal system is set up, weakpoints are inescapable, because they are merely man's constructions that are readily susceptible to manipulation. Hence, the final guarantee, if any, of those man-made legal systems is population's univeral identification with, and later habitual subordination by, laws.

To nurture the conception of rule of law in China requires efforts to nurture, by imbuing, people's respect for law. The severe legal punishments might well be the way to this goal.

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Respect/fear. While America's justce system is pretty much a joke, the Chinese system is absolute madness.

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edgarblythe,

Madness is probably a satirical but justified word for describing the status quo of legal system in China, but this word is merely concerned with the reality yet fails to give a picture of the progress, however slow, that China has made. The madness of China's legal system is what at present prods people into accusing and cussing, but "the madness" is exactly what China has to progress through, to the goal that one day the madness gives way to the rationality and, foremost, ultimate justice.

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We used to get excuses similar to that concerning civil rights for our black Americans. Surprisingly, the nation did not disentigrate or retrogress once laws conerning them were made humane.

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People are executed for even "minor" crimes. This is not true without first making clear what exactly those minor crimes are. Like those who committed bribery and embezzlement, death penalty is no cruel punishment for them. Because during the social trasition from command economy to market economy, social justice is prone to be impaired. Huge amount of economic resources is privatized that are used to be owned by the state. The privatization, however, is unlikely to be achieved without difficulty in maintaining justice. Social justice severely infringed upon and resultant anger in people mounting up, rigid punishments are deterrant to those crimes and tentatively effort to remedy contorted social justice.

Of course, there are some crimes of a minor effect that people who committed are sentenced to death. But the change of it needs time. Any appeal for a reform of any kind over night is merely a whimsical fairy tale.

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Sure it's a fairy tail to expect a quick change. I am aware of that. That does not make it okay.

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acepoly:

what can I say? Nothing - your words have said it all - congratulations on your on your commentary in regards to this matter, especially when you recognised the western ideology and principles application to China's admin of legal systems. Its possible that one problem why china is being viewed in such a bad way is viewing the east with western eyes."

china is NOT using execution as a means of decreasing the population (as some people seem to think) - if they were, the streets would be covered with as much blood as when the japanese were in china in WWII. But with the population of China, the fact that it really only started to steady around less than 60 years ago (Today's Australia is regarded as very young and compare its 200 years of federation history!!) and that china is full of so many different cultures of people (almost like a mini world) - well, the reality is: harsh standards and methods must be used (where it is called for) so the country can be rationalised, in a way. Progress is being made in china - compare the huge interest in trade compare to merely 60 years ago and the hugely anti-capitalist Mao - but because of what China is like today, progress must be made slowly and conformed to that situation.

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edgarblythe wrote:

Sure it's a fairy tail to expect a quick change. I am aware of that. That does not make it okay.

Edgarbly:

I can understand what you are saying - just because it can't happen this is not justification. But then can you think of something which is ok and at the same time conform to what China is going through? There are always two sides to a coin - wouldn't one usually pick the side that would benefit the majority of those involved?

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I just want to say that I've seen the real pictures of some prisoners being excuted in China, it's absolutely shocking, bloody, horrible...

A woman with only half a face after being blown up with one bullet from the back of her head....and ....I don't want to describe, I was really shocked....

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5600hp wrote:

I just want to say that I've seen the real pictures of some prisoners being excuted in China, it's absolutely shocking, bloody, horrible...

A woman with only half a face after being blown up with one bullet from the back of her head....

Is it as bad as the abu-grave prison affair with some of the torture methods that the american soldiers used? and also - who said executions are pretty pictures? If someone commits a crime which is said to result in this punishment, they will have to suffer it.

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pragmatic wrote:

5600hp wrote:
I just want to say that I've seen the real pictures of some prisoners being excuted in China, it's absolutely shocking, bloody, horrible...

A woman with only half a face after being blown up with one bullet from the back of her head....

Is it as bad as the abu-grave prison affair with some of the torture methods that the american soldiers used? and also - who said executions are pretty pictures? If someone commits a crime which is said to result in this punishment, they will have to suffer it.

Don't make me wrong, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with
excution, but excuting people on the street ?

And also, I have read a lot of reports saying that a huge percentage(more than 40% or higher) of "criminals" who were being excuted were innocent people who were wrongly arrested or don't have good "relationship".

I'm interested in Asia culture, and I'm not an American, why did
you assume I'm responsible for the prisoner scandal? And even most American people do not agree with the way their army treat the prisoners, why do you accuse them?

I know you love your country, but you are too emotional and too sensitive!
Anyone has the right to criticise any country about the things he thinks are wrong, don't you think?

I don't know how to post the pictures, if you want to see them, I can email you, just leave me a message.

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5600hp wrote:

Don't make me wrong, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with
excution, but excuting people on the street ?

And also, I have read a lot of reports saying that a huge percentage(more than 40% or higher) of "criminals" who were being excuted were innocent people who were wrongly arrested or don't have good "relationship".

I'm interested in Asia culture, and I'm not an American, why did
you assume I'm responsible for the prisoner scandal? And even most American people do not agree with the way their army treat the prisoners, why do you accuse them?

1)I am sorry that you misunderstood my comment as intending to blame you or accusing the american public for the prisoner scandel because I didn't - it was supposed to be a general comparison only.

2) My post never for a second implied or assumed in anyway that you are American (unless you can point out where I did and then I will immediately apologise to you). You may have jumped to some wrong conclusions about what I meant.

As I said, the post was for general comparison purposes only - and I know that Americans (and most of the world) do not approve of what happened there - I have seen the anti-war protests that have been held recently in the US as well as the international community and I notice there was a substantial amount of people.

It's good that you are interested in Asian culture. Also regarding the pics - well, I have seen the pictures from the 1989 Tiannanmen Square massacre (which I do not approve of myself) and I have a fair idea of what the picture you are talking about look like.

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China: Unequaled executionists

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