Wall Street Journal: China's Judicial Killing Machine

By BRUCE GILLEY

Fifteen thousand people were put to death for alleged crimes in China every year between 1998 and 2001. The figure is staggering, more than four times the highest Western estimates of the annual judicial carnage in China and higher than at any time since the Cultural Revolution. It comes from the book "Disidai," or "The Fourth Generation," an account of China's high-level politics, written by a party insider using the pseudonym Zong Hairen and to be published in New York next month. If his figures for last year are accurate, China accounted for more than 95% of the world's state executions.

Widespread recourse to the death penalty in China reflects a regime that has lost the ability to govern. The Chinese Communist Party came to power through violence (especially within its own ranks) and has maintained it in the same way. It still hasn't made the transition from revolution to governance. The party's continued failure to address society's needs rather than crush them -- seen most starkly in the crackdown on the Falun Gong [spiritual group] -- is creating resentment and alienation across the country. The CCP appears neither willing nor able to manage a quickly changing country according to impassive and constructive norms of modern government.

Moreover, executions have come in waves ordered from the top. Men and women are put to death whenever it suits the regime. For example, Beijing called for a stepped-up campaign in advance of 16th party congress -- and executions have soared.

Why does the world look on mutely? One empty excuse commonly put forth is that China's people support a tough line against crime. Of course, the majority can be wrong; that's one reason why constitutional democracies have such extensive checks on mob rule. And it's doubtful that a majority supports the policy at any rate.

Merely arguing from the majoritarian position is groundless in itself. China's people have never lived in a free society in which the merits of public policy could be openly debated. Since time immemorial they have lived under dictatorships that have browbeaten them with a self-serving and hegemonic discourse about the need for state power to maintain social order. Beijing also peddles a broader ideology which minimizes the value of individual lives -- through coercive population control, the violation of fundamental rights and gaping welfare inequalities -- in some grotesque utilitarian calculation of "overall national interests."

Inside China, a small but growing group of lawyers led by Liu Yunlong of Nanchang are now campaigning to restrict or abolish the death penalty. They argue that the present criminal code, which includes 68 capital crimes, 28 of them non-violent, is too draconian, especially given that the appeals system is a shambles. But without a major liberalization of the political system, they fight an uphill battle. This is where the international community needs to step in.

The world's present indifference towards the judicial genocide in China is appalling. It is one the grossest manifestations of the inequality of justice faced among peoples of the world. Abolitionist groups devote huge resources to the criminals on death row in the United States -- where there were only 66 executions last year -- and barely a penny on China. The European Union, which maintains a ban on the death penalty as a prerequisite for membership, also directs its gaze at the U.S. -- with the exception of former Hong Kong governor and present EU External Affairs Minister Chris Patten, who has been a lone voice calling attention to China. The same goes for the normally vigilant Amnesty International, whose anti-death penalty Web site is noticeably light on China content.

Not just Westerners but ethnic Chinese as well suffer from the same look-the-other-way syndrome. Hong Kong, for example, sits idly by as thousands of its compatriots are sent to the gallows every year. This inaction is despite the fact that it is uniquely positioned with a strong and supposedly morally committed legal profession which could lobby on this issue. The inattention is just plain wrong. To quote Marco Pannella, director of the Rome-based abolitionist group, Hands Off Cain, writing in the group's annual report:

"The practice of the death penalty has two facets: one, in the United States, in the spotlight of international media attention, and the other, in China, hidden from view. Often, for the media, and also for many European abolitionists, only the first exists . . . Western intellectuals bite their tongue on all of this, or tend to justify such practices on the grounds that, well, everybody knows that such countries are governed by authoritarian regimes, and that their culture and traditions are vastly different from our own. They seem not to realize that this cultural relativism is a form of acquiescent and dangerous racism."

What can be done? For a start, foreign governments -- especially in Europe where a strong abolitionist movement exists -- can make an end or reduction of state executions in China a top priority in bilateral and multilateral dialogue with Beijing. Hard-nosed lobbying should be done on behalf of the condemned. Luo Gan, the internal security chief who is closely associated with the wave of executions, should be banned from visiting foreign countries.

Governments and NGOs can also push Beijing for a revamp of the judicial system. Funding could be provided to improve the appeals system. Beijing should be pressured to provide accurate statistics and case information for those it executes. Praise should be withheld from the passage of new laws designed to protect the accused -- like the flimsy Criminal Procedure Act of 1997 -- until it is clear they are actually being implemented. There is also the ever-present risk of the regime using lethal injections as a means of harvesting more organs for profit. To minimize this risk and to prevent the death toll from creeping even higher, vigilance should be maintained to monitor Beijing's penchant for adding the crime-of-the-day to its capital list: emigrant smuggling, Internet crime and terrorism.

The wave of executions in China must be slowed, if not stopped. Much progress could be accomplished with concerted action: A mere 3% reduction in executions in China would save 500 lives a year, roughly the annual total of the entire rest of the world. The international community cannot continue to look on in silence. As it stands, the steady number of executions in China represents a moral failure and a political failure of a world too timid to pressure Beijing.

Mr. Gilley is co-author of the forthcoming book, "China's New Rulers: The Secret Files" (New York Review of Books).