Indeed, capital punishment is just about routine in China, with almost 70 capital offences under Chinese law, ranging through homicide, theft, corruption, and economic and political crimes. Over the past decade, an estimated 18,000 Chinese felons have been executed. In 1996 alone, as part of a campaign against crime, there were at least 4,000 executions. Public support for the death penalty remains high, especially for official corruption. The Government extracts maximum propaganda value from high-profile trials such as that of Cheng Kejie, the former deputy chairman of the national parliament, convicted on graft and corruption charges and executed in September.
Lethal injection is used in only a handful of countries.
In 36 US States, injection is the sole or alternative method of execution, and it has also been adopted in the Philippines, Guatemala and Taiwan. The use of lethal injections has, in fact, been permitted under Chinese law since 1996. The first such execution was performed in Kunming in the country's south-west in March 1998, and, most recently, in June eight condemned prisoners were executed using lethal injections in the western city of Chengdu. In the US, China has found a curious bedfellow on the matter of capital punishment. The US is hardly in a position to damn China while the number of executions in the US itself continues to rise.