China retains the death penalty because the public...

China retains the death penalty because the public still supports the ultimate punishment, but Beijing has taken steps to restrict its use and turn to more humane ways of executing criminals, said a Beijing-based academic. Law professor He Jiahong of the People's University, who spoke at a salon organised by City University said: "The traditional thinking among Chinese people is that the death penalty is justifiable so long as the executed is the right guy, the real criminal." Jiahong said that the majority of people in the country believed in a life for a life and cited a survey conducted in 1995 by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Of 5,000 respondents, more than 95 per cent supported the death penalty. Professor Jiahong said that education to get people to accept abolition would take time. "It cannot take place overnight. The people will not agree to abolition."