Clive Palmer incorrect on the number of executions in China

Updated

Federal MP and businessman Clive Palmer recently made a startling claim about the number of executions in China.

In an interview with the ABC's Four Corners program aired on November 25, Mr Palmer was asked whether he acted like a bully in his business dealings with a subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned company. "Well, not at all, you know. How do you bully the Chinese government that executes 500,000 people a year...?" he said.

ABC Fact Check asked Mr Palmer's media adviser if Mr Palmer had any evidence to support his claim and received no information.

The claim: Clive Palmer says the Chinese government executes 500,000 people a year.

Clive Palmer says the Chinese government executes 500,000 people a year. The verdict: While the number of executions in China is a state secret, credible estimates put it between 3,000 and 5,000 in 2012. There is no evidence to support Mr Palmer's claim.

Crimes punishable by death

The Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University in Chicago lists these crimes among those which have been punishable by death in China since 2008: aggravated murder; rape of a child; forcing a child into prostitution; taking bribes; fraud; embezzlement; fraudulent fund-raising; drug trafficking; kidnapping; espionage; organising gangs; and producing poisonous food (as a result of the 2009 tainted milk scandal).

Executions in China are carried out by either lethal injection or shooting. The Chinese government was expected to discontinue execution by shooting in 2010, but news reports based on videos posted on social media suggest it continues.

The number of executions

The number of executions in China is a state secret. Human rights organisation Amnesty International says the figure is in the "thousands", but since 2009 it has refused to estimate the number of annual executions in China beyond that broad claim because of a lack of official data.

Amnesty says in 2012 there were at least 682 executions worldwide excluding China and "available information strongly indicates that China carries out more executions than the rest of the world put together".

Fact Check asked Amnesty to comment on Mr Palmer's claim. A spokeswoman said: "Certainly 500,000 seems like a stretch." But she noted that as it is a state secret, it cannot be verified.

While Amnesty is not prepared to estimate the number of executions each year in China, others are. The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office says: "Informed estimates currently place the figure at around 4,000-5,000 per year."

According to Dui Hua, a United States non-profit group that champions the human rights of detainees in China, the number of executions has fallen from 12,000 in 2002 to 3,000 in 2012. Dui Hua said it reduced its estimate from 4,000 in 2011 in part due to a December 2012 estimate by Professor William Schabas, an expert in international law at Middlesex University in London.

Dui Hua's estimate of 3,000 executions in 2012 is used by the Center for International Human Rights and by Hands Off Cain, an Italian organisation which advocates for the abolition of the death penalty worldwide.

The figure represents one execution for every 451,347 people, based on the population of 1.345 billion at the end of 2012 published the National Bureau of Statistics of China.

The verdict

While the number of executions in China is a state secret, credible estimates put it between 3,000 and 5,000 in 2012.

There is no evidence to support Mr Palmer's claim of 500,000 executions in China a year. He is incorrect.

Sources

Topics: world-politics, minor-parties, australia, china

First posted