Mobile death vans, firing squads, lethal injections: China uses these methods to carry out more state-sanctioned executions than all other nations combined.
While the communist state does not release its official figures, human rights groups estimate that many thousands of people are executed each year – more than countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States, even when they are counted together.
Criminal law in the country is as strict as it is obscure; many crimes are punishable by death under Beijing's draconian legislation.
Death sentences are often imposed for crimes ranging from drug trafficking to murder, but also for economic crimes such as corruption.
According to a report published in 2021, China's 1997 Penal Code – which remains in force today – provides for 46 crimes punishable by the death penalty, including 24 violent crimes and 22 non-violent crimes.
While the number of such crimes has slowly declined (74 in 1979, according to the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty), executions remain widespread, creating what Amnesty International calls an “execution assembly line.”
In 2022, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty stated that at least 8,000 people per year have been executed in China since 2007.
Criminal law in the country is as strict as it is obscure; many crimes are punishable by death under Beijing's draconian legislation. Pictured: Police parade a group of convicts at a sentencing rally in Wenzhou in 2004. At such rallies, people are often sentenced to death
Excluding China, Amnesty International said it recorded 883 executions in 2022 – a huge increase from 579 in 2021. After China, it said Iran executed about 570 people, followed by Saudi Arabia, which executed 196. But China's total surpassed them all. and is valued at more than all other countries combined
The death penalty in China made headlines this week as the country on Wednesday executed a couple who killed two young children and a son who was executed for beating his mother to death with a dumbbell.
The case of the couple who threw their children out of the window of an apartment building in particular caused outrage across the country.
Zhang Bo and Ye Chengchen were blamed for the fatal falls of the two-year-old girl and one-year-old boy from the 15th floor of a residential tower in southwest China's Chongqing.
Zhang, the father of the two children, had begun an affair with Ye, who initially did not know that he was married and had children.
She then asked Zhang to kill his two children, which she viewed as an “obstacle” to their marriage and a “burden on their future life together,” the Chongqing No. 5 Intermediate People's Court said in a statement.
In November 2020, Zhang threw his children out of the apartment window in the absence of their mother, with whom he had agreed to divorce.
Both were convicted of conspiring to kill his daughter and younger son by accidentally falling from the 15th floor of his apartment building, the state-backed China Daily reported last year, and sentenced to death in December 2021.
The court said they were executed on Wednesday.
The news came on the same day as another high-profile execution – of Wu Xieyu, who was found guilty in 2015 of killing his mother by repeatedly hitting her with a dumbbell, a statement from a court in the eastern province said Fujian.
Zhang and Ye's crime sent shockwaves across China due to its cold-blooded intent and the youth of the victims.
Their executions quickly rose to the top of trending topics on Chinese social media site Weibo on Wednesday, garnering nearly 200 million views.
“Today is really a good day,” said a widely read comment under a corresponding article by the state news agency Xinhua. “The punishment fits the crime,” wrote another.
Father Zhang Bo and his girlfriend Ye Chengchen (pictured together) were previously blamed for the two children's fatal fall from the 15th floor of a residential tower in southwest China's Chongqing. They were executed on Wednesday
Wu Xieyu (pictured on CCTV in 2016), 30, a former Beijing University student, was found guilty in 2015 of repeatedly beating his mother Xie Tianqin with a dumbbell before wrapping her body in several layers of plastic wrap and leaving her in sealed in her room. He was also executed
While these cases have been made public, China keeps data on its use of the death penalty secret. Nevertheless, details have emerged from the country.
Although the number of crimes punishable by death has declined, the number of executions has remained largely stable, according to the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty.
This is attributed to the fact that some of the crimes punishable by death include the teaching of criminal methods or the theft of ancient relics or ancient vertebrates – crimes that are not common.
While Beijing has abolished the death penalty for some of these crimes, more common criminal practices that carry the penalty remain widespread.
However, the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty says only a small number of death sentences and executions are ever made public.
However, it is noted that the number of executions fell significantly in 2007, when the Supreme People's Court assumed the power to review verdicts. For 27 years, before 2007, it had delegated responsibility.
Over the years, there have been glimpses of China's “execution assembly line,” with videos and images emerging of public “execution rallies” and summary killings.
Perhaps one of the most shocking revelations was that Beijing was using “execution vans,” also called mobile execution units.
Perhaps one of the most shocking revelations was that Beijing uses “execution vans,” also called mobile execution units, to travel to the person to be executed. The condemned man is placed in the back of the truck and given a lethal injection
The vans allow roving death squads to carry out state-sanctioned killings without having to transport the prisoner to an execution site.
From what we know about the vans, they are usually converted 24-seater buses.
From the outside, they look like regular police vehicles, with no external markings to indicate what they are used for. However, there is an execution chamber inside.
There is reportedly a windowless chamber in the rear of the vehicle where the execution itself takes place.
There are also several surveillance cameras in the van so the execution can be recorded or observed if officials wish to monitor it.
A bed slides out of the wall of the van, onto which the convicted criminal is strapped. A technician then inserts a syringe into their arm before a police officer presses a button to administer the lethal injection.
The transporter concept, reportedly first used in the late 1990s, draws comparisons to larger models developed by the Nazis in World War II to gas Jewish prisoners during the Holocaust.
China has previously insisted its death transport vehicles were “progress” because they were cheaper to run than execution facilities and eliminated the need to transport prisoners.
In 2012, a bystander appeared to capture an execution by shooting at the camera (pictured).
Footage showed police leading a man into a clearing near a village as a crowd watched from a nearby overpass before shooting him in the back of the head
China is also reported to use firing squads as a means of executing prisoners.
The practice was supposed to be phased out in 2010 in favor of the use of lethal injections, but firing squads have also been recorded since then.
In one case, a man who stabbed nine schoolchildren – Zhao Zewei – was shot by a firing squad in front of a crowd of villagers in 2018.
There have also been examples of summary executions in China – where a person accused of a crime is executed immediately after being found guilty, although often without the benefit of a criminal trial and a free trial.
The country's justice system is known for favoring prosecutors. Chinese courts record a conviction rate of 99.9 percent.
In 2017, China sentenced 10 people to death, mostly for drug-related offenses.
In scenes reminiscent of the early days of the People's Republic, when capitalists and landowners were rounded up and publicly denounced, the ten people were tried outdoors in front of a large crowd.
They were executed in Guangdong immediately after their conviction.
In another case in 2014, 55 people were sentenced in a stadium in front of 7,000 spectators before many were taken away by police for execution.
In 2012, a bystander showed up to capture an execution on camera.
Footage showed police officers leading a man into a clearing near a village as a crowd watched from a nearby overpass.
The man is seen being led into the middle of the clearing, where he is photographed and forced to kneel before a gun is aimed at the back of his head.
He is then shown being shot by a police officer.
Police parade prisoners during an execution rally at a stadium in Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan province, June 26, 2001
Chinese police show a group of hardened convicts at a sentencing rally in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou, April 7, 2004
Police officers guard suspects during a public rally for the verdict in Baokang, central China's Hubei province, September 28, 2007
It's not just violent or drug crimes that are punished with the death penalty in China.
In January 2021, Chinese tycoon and senior government official Lai Xiaomi was sentenced to death for bribery and bigamy.
The 58-year-old was accused of soliciting $300 million in bribes between 2008 and 2018 and starting a secret family while married to his wife.
He has reportedly confessed on state television to accumulating luxury cars and gold bars as part of his role as China's state banking regulator.
He was executed on January 29, 2021 – 24 days after his conviction.
Another shocking factor in China's use of the death penalty is the practice of organ harvesting, which benefits from the country's high number of executions.
The transporters in particular are said to be an important part of the Chinese organ trade. According to a 2012 estimate, 65 percent of donated organs came from executed people.
According to reports, so many prisoners are being executed in the transports to meet the high demand for organs.
Convicted murderer Naw Kham is brought to his execution in China in March 2013
Activists say bodies are quickly cremated, making it impossible for the families of those executed to determine whether their organs were removed.
According to figures published by Amnesty International last year, China was by far the country with the highest execution rate.
Excluding China, the group said it recorded 883 executions in 2022 – a huge increase from 579 in 2021. After China, Iran executed about 570 people, followed by Saudi Arabia with 196 executions.
Like China, other countries do not publish their death sentence numbers, such as Vietnam and North Korea, but even then it is estimated that not as many people are killed as in Beijing, where well over 1,000 people are likely to have been executed in 2022.