No institution in the legal system of contemporary China has attracted more controversy and misunderstanding than the death penalty. Moreover, remarkable changes have significantly altered the way the death penalty is perceived and applied in the world's most populous state. The Death Penalty in China is required reading for anyone desiring to keep abreast of China's evolving legal landscape, criminal justice reform, and perplexing human rights environment. Highly recommended.
— Andrew Scobell, coauthor of China's Search for Security

This excellent collection of essays should be greatly welcomed, providing as it does insights into the way that Chinese scholars, both within and outside China, as well as foreign scholars who have studied the Chinese system in depth, explain the changes underway and assess their significance. The Death Penalty in China needs to be read by everyone concerned with the project of eliminating capital punishment throughout the world.
— from the foreword by Roger Hood, emeritus professor of criminology, University of Oxford

This outstanding book describes proficiently what is known and knowable about the death penalty in transition in China today. The cooperation between excellent Chinese scholars and world-renowned scholars from abroad secures relevance and accuracy. Debates and practices are captured in light of Chinese death penalty history, the special character of the Chinese state, as well as in comparison to other Chinas of the present.
— Lill Scherdin, project leader, Universities Against the Death Penalty

A timely assessment of China's death penalty reform in context, this volume is a must read for academics and activists.
— Choice

Bin Liang is an associate professor of sociology at Oklahoma State University–Tulsa. He is the author of The Changing Chinese Legal System, 1978–Present: Centralization of Power and Rationalization of the Legal System, coauthor of China's Drug Practices and Policies: Regulating Controlled Substances in a Global Context, and with Hong Lu, coeditor of Jurisprudence: Contemporary Western Sociological Studies and Developments.

Hong Lu is professor in the Criminal Justice Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is the coauthor of Punishment: A Comparative Historical Perspective and China's Death Penalty: History, Law and Contemporary Practices.

Roger Hood is professor emeritus of criminology at the University of Oxford and emeritus fellow of All Souls College.

Foreword
Preface and Acknowledgments
1. China's Death Penalty Practice: Working Progress, Struggle, and Challenges Within the Global Abolition Movement, by Bin Liang
2. The Criminal Justice System and the Death Penalty, by Hong Lu, Yudu Liu, and Charlotte Hu
3. Crimes of Counterrevolution and Politicized Use of the Death Penalty During the Mao Era, by Ning Zhang
4. China's Death Penalty in a State-Power-Based Society, by Yunhai Wang
5. From "Killing Many" to "Killing Fewer", by Susan Trevaskes
6. The Abolitionist and Retentionist Debate, by Zhigang Yu (translated by Charlotte Hu)
7. Guiding Cases for China's Death Penalty: Analysis and Reflection, by Xingliang Chen (translated by Charlotte Hu)
8. The Death Penalty After the Restoration of Centralized Review: An Empirical Study on Capital Sentencing, by Moulin Xiong
9. Public Opinion and the Death Penalty, by Shanhe Jiang
10. Between Deference and Defiance: Courts and Penal Populism in Chinese Capital Cases, by Hualing Fu
11. Chinese Capital Punishment in Comparative Perspective, by David T. Johnson and Michelle Miao
12. China's Death Penalty in the Twenty-First Century, by Bin Liang and Hong Lu
List of Contributors
Index