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Which offences carry the death penalty in China?

The death penalty in China is governed by the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China (as amended 2023). The law currently provides for 46 capital offences, spanning both violent and non-violent crimes. The most recent reduction in capital offences was made by the Ninth Amendment to the Criminal Law in 2015, which removed the death penalty for nine offences. No further reductions have been made since.

Categories of capital offence

Capital offences fall across nine broad categories:

• Crimes against national security: including espionage, splitting the state, armed rebellion, subversion of state power, and defection to the enemy (Articles 102–111)
• Crimes endangering public security: including arson, explosion, and acts causing mass casualties through dangerous means (Articles 113–119)
• Terrorism-related offences: including organising or leading a terrorist organisation and aircraft hijacking (Articles 120–121)
• Violent crimes against persons: including intentional homicide, rape, robbery resulting in death, and kidnapping resulting in death (Articles 232–239)
• Drug offences: including trafficking, manufacturing, and importing or exporting controlled substances in large quantities (Article 347)
• Economic crimes: including fraud involving extremely large amounts, smuggling weapons or nuclear materials, and certain financial crimes (Articles 151, 199)
• Crimes against property: including robbery with aggravating circumstances (Article 263)
• Corruption offences: including bribery by public officials in particularly serious circumstances (Articles 383, 386)
• Military offences: including surrender to the enemy, inciting mutiny, and desertion during combat (Articles 421–446)

The “most serious crimes” threshold

The majority of these offences do not meet the international law threshold of “most serious crimes,” which under ICCPR Article 6 and successive UN human rights body interpretations is limited to intentional killing. The continued application of the death penalty to drug offences, economic crimes, and corruption has been the subject of repeated criticism by the UN Committee Against Torture, the UN Human Rights Committee, and Amnesty International.

Sentencing structure: immediate execution and suspended death sentences

Death sentences in China may be imposed in two forms:

• Immediate execution: carried out following Supreme People’s Court approval.
• Suspended death sentence: under Article 48 of the Criminal Law, a two-year reprieve may be attached to a death sentence where immediate execution is not considered necessary. During the suspension period, the sentence may be commuted to life imprisonment or a fixed-term sentence if the offender does not commit a deliberate crime. In practice, the majority of suspended death sentences are commuted rather than carried out.

Secrecy of data: China treats data on death sentences and executions as a state secret. No official statistics are published.^{[19]ECPM, China: Death Penalty Country Profile 2024 (ECPM 2024) 5–7 https://www.ecpm.org/app/uploads/2025/10/Brochure_Chine_2024_EN.pdf; Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China https://en.spp.gov.cn/2020-12/26/c_948417.htm; Amnesty International, Death Sentences and Executions 2024 (2025) 24 https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/act50/8976/2025/en/; Committee Against Torture, ‘Concluding Observations on the Fifth Periodic Report of China’ (3 February 2016) UN Doc CAT/C/CHN/CO/5 https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/concluding-observations/catcchnco5-concluding-observations-fifth-periodic-report-china.}

What additional protections apply to a foreign national facing a capital charge?

Foreign nationals facing a capital charge in China are entitled to the same procedural safeguards as Chinese nationals under the Criminal Procedure Law (CPL), plus additional protections arising from their status as foreign nationals under international law. In practice, however, both sets of protections are subject to significant structural limitations.

• • Mandatory legal aid in capital cases: As noted in Question 5, where a defendant facing the death penalty has not retained a lawyer, the relevant legal aid agency must appoint one.
  • Mandatory Supreme People’s Court review: No death sentence can be carried out without a final review and approval by the SPC in Beijing. This mandatory review applies to every immediate death sentence and constitutes an important check on lower court decisions. In practice, the SPC review is conducted on the papers and does not involve a hearing; the defendant has no direct right of audience before the SPC at this stage.

• Suspended Death Sentences: A protection unique to China is the Death Sentence with a Two-Year Reprieve. If the individual does not commit another intentional crime during the two-year period, the sentence is automatically commuted to life imprisonment. This is frequently applied to cases where there are “mitigating circumstances” or diplomatic sensitivities.

• Exemptions from the Death Penalty: Under the Criminal Law, regardless of nationality, capital punishment is strictly prohibited for:

• • Persons who were under 18 at the time the crime was committed;
  • Women who are pregnant at the time of trial;
  • Persons who have reached the age of 75 at the time of trial, unless they caused the death of another through “especially cruel means”.

• Procedural Safeguards During Trial

• • Audio and Video Recording: The CPL mandates that the entire interrogation process for crimes punishable by death must be recorded to prevent coerced confessions.
  • Interpretation Services: Foreign nationals have the right to a court-appointed interpreter at every stage of the process to ensure they can adequately present their defence.
  • Right to Submit Opinions: Defence lawyers have the right to meet with SPC judges during the final review stage to present evidence or arguments against the execution, a process that was formalised in 2016 to increase transparency.^{[20]Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China https://en.spp.gov.cn/2020-12/26/c_948417.htm; Criminal Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China (as amended 2018), arts 228–237 https://english.court.gov.cn/2015-07/17/c_761544_7.htm.}

Can evidence or documentation from a foreign national’s home country be submitted in proceedings?

Evidence from a foreign national’s home country is admissible in Chinese proceedings, but to be accepted by a Chinese court, foreign documentation must undergo a mandatory three-step process:

• Notarisation: The document must be notarised by a notary public or authorised official in the home country to verify the authenticity of the signature or seal.
• Authentication (Apostille or Legalisation): If the home country is a member of the 1961 Apostille Convention (which China joined in November 2023), a single “Apostille” certificate from the home country’s authority is sufficient.
  • Consular Legalisation: If the country is not a member, the document must be “legalised” by the Chinese embassy or consulate in that country.
• Certified Translation: All foreign-language documents must be accompanied by a certified translation into Simplified Chinese. Courts typically require these translations to be performed by an agency recognised by the court or a licensed domestic notary in China.

In practice, defence access to case materials in capital cases is documented as restricted, and trials in sensitive cases may be closed to consular observers, limiting the realistic opportunity to introduce foreign evidence.^{[21]Criminal Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China (2018 Revision) https://english.court.gov.cn/2015-07/17/c_761544_7.htm; The Rights Practice, Respect for Minimum Standards? Report on the Death Penalty in China (October 2020) https://www.rights-practice.org/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=2a885eaf-8f27-4180-9cd0-20344ad47f50.}

What pardon or clemency mechanisms are available?

Under Article 67 and 80 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, the President holds the power to grant pardons, on the instruction of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. In practice, this power sits within the Chinese Communist Party’s political structure, with the General Secretary of the Party also serving as President.

Judicial review: the suspended death sentence

The primary mechanism through which death sentences are reduced in China is judicial rather than executive. Under Article 48 of the Criminal Law, a court may impose a two-year suspended death sentence where immediate execution is not considered necessary. During the two-year suspension period:

• The sentence is automatically commuted to life imprisonment if the offender does not commit a deliberate crime; and
• In exceptional circumstances involving major meritorious acts, commutation to a fixed-term sentence of 25 years is possible.

The court determines whether mitigating factors — including the offender’s conduct, degree of culpability, and prospects for rehabilitation — justify a suspended rather than immediate sentence. In practice, the majority of death sentences in China are imposed in suspended form and are ultimately commuted.

Presidential pardon: no recorded use

No grant of executive clemency for a death row prisoner has been recorded since the People’s Republic was established in 1949. Once a defendant has exhausted their judicial avenues (including appeal and SPC review) there is no established procedure through which they or their representatives can submit a clemency petition for political or executive consideration. The absence of any functioning clemency process for death row prisoners means that the right to seek pardon guaranteed under ICCPR Article 6(4) (to which China is not a party, but which reflects a widely recognised international standard) does not exist in practice.

Implications for foreign nationals

Foreign nationals on death row in China have no dedicated clemency channel and no avenue for political review of their sentence beyond the judicial process. Diplomatic intervention by the home state through formal representations to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the only realistic external avenue, and its effectiveness is limited. The execution of four Canadian nationals in early 2025 despite active diplomatic protests by Canada illustrates the constraints of this approach.^{[22]Constitution of the People’s Republic of China 1982, art 67(17), art 80 http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Constitution/node_2825.htm; Ensemble contre la peine de mort (ECPM), China: Death Penalty Country Profile 2024 (ECPM 2024) https://www.ecpm.org/app/uploads/2025/10/Brochure_Chine_2024_EN.pdf; ADP Network, Clemency Procedures in East and Southeast Asia (ADPAN 2021) 17 https://adpan.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Clemency-Process-in-East-and-Southeast-Asia-Rev1.0.pdf; The Rights Practice, Respect for Minimum Standards? Report on the Death Penalty in China (October 2020) https://www.rights-practice.org/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=2a885eaf-8f27-4180-9cd0-20344ad47f50; Leyland Cecco, ‘Foreign Minister “Strongly Condemns” China’s Executions of Four Canadians’ The Guardian (19 March 2025) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/19/canada-china-executions.}