BEIJING, China, Nov. 22
A panel of the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution last week calling for a moratorium on executions. China voted against the resolution, sticking to its long-held position that this matter is an internal affair to be decided by each country.
A representative of China's U.N. mission pointed out that 52 nations voted against the resolution, proving that there is no international consensus on abolishing capital punishment. The Chinese government thus questioned the effectiveness of this resolution.
However, the Chinese government should be aware that the 52 nations that voted against the resolution represent less than one-third of the 191 member states. It is a fundamental practice that the minority should follow the majority; isn't this principle recognized by the Chinese government under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party?
China often describes itself as a great nation; it is also one of the five members of the U.N. Security Council. With this kind of status and position, China should be able to lead the trend to abolish the death penalty, especially as most of the countries in the world oppose it on the grounds that it is inconsistent with universal principles of human rights.
Why then does the Chinese government favor capital punishment?
It is because the death penalty is the most effective tool by which a highly centralized government can frighten the people. The Party must therefore retain the right to deprive an individual of the right to life through judicial channels.
The Chinese government objected to the U.N. committee addressing this issue, saying this would further politicize the matter. Nevertheless, consider the fact that the CCP has killed more than 1 million people since it took power, including the period of the Cultural Revolution. Among those deaths, which one was not pursued due to political considerations?
Concerning one of China's most furious massacres, in which books were burned and scholars buried alive during the Qin Dynasty, Mao Zedong spoke with contempt of the Qin Emperor for killing fewer people than he himself had killed. Doesn't this show that the political purpose of killing is more important than the penal purpose?
The Communist Party itself arose through a process of high horror and killing. A Russian history scholar once compared the last Czar's regime with the Russian Communist regime after the October Revolution of 1917. The scholar pointed out that the regime of the Romanov Dynasty killed 894 prisoners of state within 80 years from 1826 to 1905. By comparison, he said, hundreds of thousands died for political reasons within the first month after the Bolsheviks took power.
What about the Chinese Communist Party, which killed not only its enemies but also its own people? During the Cultural Revolution, one sentence misspoken or one mistake made could result in a death sentence.
Today, application of the death sentence demonstrates the difference between a person who is inside and one who is outside the Party. The first will be treated with lenience, while the second will face strict judgment. This holds true even in cases where the accused has killed a witness to cover up the crime. A Chinese official said that cases involving capital crimes were handled with caution, under stricter standards than others to ensure a fair trial for the accused. This is impossible however.
Last year there were two prominent cases in which people hired killers to take someone's life. One involved the brother of the minister of railways, while the other concerned a rich man.
The former not only hired an assassin to kill someone, but was involved in corruption and bribery to the tune of more than 10 million yuan. Yet the judge gave him a suspended death sentence. It is expected that this brother of a high official will swagger out of prison.
The latter had committed a similar crime, hiring killers to take a life. This man cooperated with the police and offered to pay millions of yuan to compensate for the crime. However, the man and the hired killers were quickly and rashly sent to their deaths.
These two different judgments stirred much discussion on the Internet -- most of which was quickly removed by Web supervisors. In the end, that minister of railways was appointed as a member of the Party's Central Committee after the 17th Party Congress last month.
A majority of the countries in the world want to abolish the death penalty, for it cannot reduce or put an end to crimes. This is certainly true in China now.
The exact number of prisoners who are put to death each year remains a state secret. Whenever a significant holiday approaches, the government will announce many death sentences. This is to accomplish the goal of frightening potential wrongdoers. Yet social order does not improve.
Moreover, some criminals think they are going to die anyway, so they are very bold in carrying out terrible crimes. Therefore in today's China, marred by social inequality and a huge gap between rich and poor, it becomes harder and harder to maintain a so-called "harmonious society."
Why does the Chinese government favor the death sentence?
It is a means of displaying its own cruelty and unchangeable nature. In ancient times, when the rulers killed the people it revealed their failure to control the people they killed. In that case, killing was not at all a display of their power.
However, in the New China led by the CCP, the rulers kill the people and then make a lot of noise about it. They execute a prisoner and then ask the family to pay for the bullet; they seem to take satisfaction in this.
Nationally known academician He Zuoxiu has said that both living and dying are different for officials than for ordinary people in China. Even if both receive a death sentence, in the case of the official, it can be carried out by injection, keeping the body undamaged. The ordinary person will be shot in the head, and his or her organs cut out to be sold for transplants.
Facing death, equality is beyond reach. Facing life, there is no comparison.
In brief, the Chinese government favors the death penalty because it serves the needs of an autarchic government; it is the final weapon of the one-party dictatorship.
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(Zi Yue is the pen name of a Beijing-based freelance writer, critic on current affairs and medical doctor. This article is edited and translated from the Chinese by UPI Asia Online; the original can be found at www.ncn.org. ©Copyright Zi Yue.)
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