Are the Monkeys Frightened?

Like everybody else, we wrote a piece yesterday about the surprise death penalty handed down to the former head of Chinese Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu. Like most people, too, we concluded that it was a case of shajijinghou(杀鸡警猴) or kill the chicken to warn the monkey, a much quoted piece of Chinese folk wisdom. For foreign campaigners trying to get China to reform its deplorable regulatory apparatus, this was presumably a victory. Another set of campaigners--those seeking to get China to reform its deplorable record of judicial killing (it leads the world in executions; the numbers are not officially released but Amnesty estimates --see the latest report on China and the Olympics, though good luck if you are behind the GFW-- that as many as eight thousand are legally executed a year), it may have been seen as a setback.

Personally, as an unreconstructed bleeding heart liberal, on this issue at least, I believe the death penalty is counterproductive, cruel and hard to justify under any circumstances given the high rate of mistaken convictions. That's particularly a problem in China, where the penalty is carried out very, very swiftly, often within days of the sentencing. That doesn't exactly allow for enough time for a full and detailed review of the proceedings. Even in the U.S., which has an ugly record of its own on this issue and where cases notoriously drag on for years on appeal, we're endlessly hearing stories of prisoners released from death row after a decade or two when new evidence emerges that proves them innocent. Or, worse, the new evidence emerges after the executions have been carried out. Mr. Zheng's case is particularly relevant to this debate as he of course committed a non-violent crime, a number of which (corruption, embezzlement) carry the death penalty in China. Of course, Zheng's crimes lead more or less directly to the deaths of scores of people, my Chinese colleagues point out, arguing that that justifies his execution. I'd say it would be worse punishment to be stuck in jail for the next few decades.

Like everything else in the country, this issue is in the process of discussion and change as reform and opening continue. But while academics and officials debate, hundreds of innocent victims lie rotting in jail -- or in some cases being executed.