AI: 3/4 of World's Executions in China

Amnesty International's 2008 report on Executions and Death Sentences states that 76% of the world's executions were in east and south Asia.  China's 1,718 was 94% of Asia's total and nearly 75% of the world's executions.

The Supreme People's Court's 2007 resumption of its long dormant review of death penalty cases has been reported by Chinese authorities to have led to a 30% reduction.  But because of state secrecy the numbers cannot be verified and many believe that Amnesty's estimates are low.

Other East and South Asian states' executions are:  

Pakistan (at least 36), Viet Nam (at least 19), Afghanistan (at least 17), North Korea (at least 15), Japan (15), Indonesia (10), Bangladesh (5), Mongolia (at least 1), Malaysia (at least 1), and Singapore (at least 1).

China has a unique system of conditional death sentence - which as a practical matter is a long (but not life-long) prison term.  Provisional death sentences are included in China's total below.

The following 16 countries are known to have sentenced a total of least 7767 people to death: 

China (at least 7003), Pakistan (at least 236), Bangladesh (at least 185), Afghanistan (131), India (at least 70), Viet Nam (at least 59), Japan (27), Malaysia (at least 22), Indonesia (at least 10), Taiwan (at least 8), Singapore (5), Thailand (at least 3), North Korea (+), South Korea (at least 2), Sri Lanka (2) and Laos (2).

The AI report is here.