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I've found some sources that show China has a relatively low intentional homicide rate. For example:

Is the intentional homicide rate extremely low in China?

Oddthinking
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user2638180
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  • First I thought this was an interesting question but with all your human rights links it seems that you intentionally conflate state-sanctioned killings (death penalty, police action on suspects) with the more commonly accepted meaning of murder - something you later want to exclude. – pipe Aug 07 '23 at 16:52
  • @pipe, no, as long as all deaths are regulated by law, I don't consider them as homicides. My point is more about that if human rights aren't respected I find rare that they go through a process of making them lawful and that there are no abuses in that. – user2638180 Aug 07 '23 at 16:54
  • @pipe, I've made an edit to make it more clear. – user2638180 Aug 07 '23 at 17:02
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    The Wikipedia definition also carves out actions of the legal system from intentional homicides, so I don't know what you're asking at all – CJR Aug 07 '23 at 17:32
  • I removed the red herring claims about human rights abuses, as they are unrelated to the intentional homicide rate. – Oddthinking Aug 07 '23 at 17:47
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    Is there a reason why you are skeptical? Is it because China is a very large country? The homicide *rate* is relative to the population, not absolute. – Weather Vane Aug 07 '23 at 22:41
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    @user2638180: you are quoting three relatively credible source that all say the same thing. What exactly are you skeptical about? What type of source or evidence would you like to see to be less skeptical? – Hilmar Aug 08 '23 at 14:53
  • @Hilmar, The same there are sources like the ones I say, there are ones like these: https://t.ly/fY3aR, t.ly/0VYjv , https://t.ly/3_7vt. So, unless these things are somehow legal, and don't count as murders, or just a myth to give bad press, I find difficult to believe that it's both possible to have such a low murder rate with things like these happening. I'd like to find an evidence that taking into consideration things like I mention still explains why the murder rate is so low (by these things being inventions or legal, or some other circunstance under which they wouldn't be murders). – user2638180 Aug 08 '23 at 17:08
  • You can ask a question about the thruth of the story in your last link. Personally I would strongly doubt the veracity of that story, definitely with the 'thousands' attached to it but a properly sourced answer to that would be helpful. – quarague Aug 09 '23 at 07:50
  • This question seems silly to me. You have different three claims you want investigated (you wonder in comments if they are a myth), but instead you are asking about a fourth, far more prosaic claim. "So, unless these things are somehow legal, and don't count as murders" Of course they don't count as murders. The organ claim says they are from "executed prisoners of conscience". The 13 deaths claim says it is due to torture by prison/hospital officials. The driving one is about people allegedly getting away without it being considered murder. – Oddthinking Aug 11 '23 at 05:10
  • Related: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/34986/are-falun-gong-members-killed-and-their-organs-harvested – Oddthinking Aug 11 '23 at 05:11
  • @Oddthinking, what I mean as don't count as murders is if legally they wouldn't count as one. If there's death penalty in a country, executions done this way are obviously not counted as murders, I don't have idea about chinese laws but, I guess, legally things like that would be considered murders in legal terms. So I'm asking if, according to chinese laws more and less everything that is discovered to be a murder is treated as such, or if, in reality, they mostly ignore their own laws and the numbers given could be way higher. – user2638180 Aug 11 '23 at 10:16
  • @user2638180: Maybe we should try another approach - what do you think an answer would look like (one that confirmed that statistics were right, and one that didn't?) What evidence would make sense to say "There are more murders than the statistics say." and what evidence would make sense to say "The statistics are correct?" (I can't see how to answer this for any country.) – Oddthinking Aug 11 '23 at 15:41
  • Are you equally skeptical of the 20 countries that show as having a *lower* rate in Wikipedia's list? Or is there some *a priori* reason you think *China specifically* should have a higher rate than other countries? – IMSoP Aug 14 '23 at 06:53
  • @Oddthinking, a good answer should be like this, take Chinese laws and determine under which conditions death penalty happens, all these deaths aren't counted as they are legal, get to explain links like I mention, being legal or inventions made by the media, as if they are not legal they are intentional homicides. – user2638180 Aug 15 '23 at 11:58
  • @IMSoP, I don't know enough about other countries on the list, but I know that China is even being accused of commiting genocides (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/10/china-committed-genocide-against-uighurs-in-xinjiang-says-report). so a very low intentional homicide rate while commiting a genocide seems kinda strange. Unless that's false or it's legal to do. – user2638180 Aug 15 '23 at 12:01
  • @user2638180: The death penalty cases are already clearly not included in the statistics, so there is nothing to resolve. Non-fatal car accidents that are allegedly deliberately turned into fatal incidents without anyone knowing cannot be not included in intentional homicide statistics, so there is nothing to resolve. The dozen or so deaths allegedly due to government-sanctioned torture are almost certainly not included in intentional homicide statistics (and would be barely a blip if they were), so there is nothing to resolve. This conversation is stuck in a silly loop, so I am stopping. – Oddthinking Aug 15 '23 at 12:17
  • Count me as skeptical also--based on the fears of locals I have talked to. – Loren Pechtel Aug 16 '23 at 00:35

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