If there is one human rights issue China and the US have no discord over, it is their adherence to the death penalty but in both countries there is unease over its imposition, leading American academics say.
"One thing the United States and China agree on is the death penalty," said Jerome Cohen of the Council on Foreign Relations in the US during a discussion at Hong Kong University at the weekend.
"I think it is a very sad thing," he said.
China liberally uses the death penalty but keeps the number of executions a closely guarded state secret.
According to the London-based rights group Amnesty International, China executes more people in a year than the rest of the world combined.
A recent book titled China's New Rulers, purportedly written by a highly placed government source and published last year in the US, said China has executed up to 15,000 people a year during its four-year "strike hard" campaign against crime.
Earlier this year, the government said the campaign would continue for at least another year.
Robin Maher, director of the American Bar Association Death Penalty Representation Project, said "with more than 3,500 people on death row today, the United States is facing a real crisis of confidence in its system of capital punishment."
"The release of more than 100 wrongfully convicted persons from death row in recent years has even the most ardent supporters of capital punishment wondering whether we are executing the guilty or the innocent," Maher said.
Cohen is an authority on the Chinese legal system and Maher recently visited Beijing and Shanghai, where she participated in programs on reform of the death penalty and the role of defense lawyers in the US.
"Even chairman Mao (
"Chinese scholars are suggesting reducing the number of offences for which the death penalty can be applied," he said.
Better representation for criminals could also reduce executions, he said, noting criminals do not always receive legal representation. Defense lawyers are also vulnerable to punishment because the Chinese Communist Party has a stranglehold on the police and judiciary, exercising control over both investigation and trial.
"In the post-9/11 situation, we now have this threat beginning to emerge [in the US]," Cohen said, referring to the difficulties faced by lawyers defending people accused of acts of terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Maher said that in the US, "chief among the problems with the capital punishment system is the inadequacy of qualified and experienced lawyers to represent those charged."
Representing someone charged with the death penalty is politically unpopular in many southern states where more than 80 percent of executions take place. On the other hand, 98 percent of prosecutors in death penalty jurisdictions are white and they also have political ambitions, Maher added.
While there is no public discussion on the ethics of the death penalty in China, Cohen said judges were profoundly concerned about public opinion.
Currently Chinese public opinion as gauged through independent Internet Web sites favors the death penalty but anger often flares over false convictions, the academics pointed out.
Maher said that US Attorney General John Ashcroft has instructed his subordinates to seek the death penalty in more federal cases than ever before.
Science has given critics of the death penalty "renewed energy" after DNA testing exposed many wrongful convictions.
This year, while US public support remains constant at about 68 percent, it drops to a bare majority when life in prison is offered as an alternative, Maher said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese