| 英文摘要 |
In a 2011 debate, the Chinese government decided to maintain the death penalty for corruption while eliminating it for other more serious crimes. While the motivation behind use of the death penalty in regard to corruption has not been fully explored, it is crucial to explore the messages of the Chinese government. Although executions are expressed in legal terms following the rule of law, the death penalty itself is understood by the public through the state-controlled media, and it is noteworthy how the Chinese state media interprets legal terms in plain language to construct the meaning of the death penalty. In other words, how does fear of crime exist if China is “governing through corruption”? A content analysis of 328 corruption media reports shows that the revival of traditional values under State Confucianism reveals the rationale for condemning corrupt officials to death. Parallels between media reports and legal elements suggest that the immorality of these officials, as portrayed by the media, forms the foundation of legal arguments for the death penalty, therefore representing a step from immorality to illegality. This paper suggests that the cultural image of the new capitalist class reflects the ways in which old communist values provided a basis for denouncing white-collar criminals when capitalism entered China in 1978; further, it suggests that the government establishes a culture of control by utilizing symbolic rhetoric in an attempt to tackle corruption by governing through corruption.
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