中国司法部门一名主要官员说，中国正在考虑扩大使用药物注射方式执行死刑，以替代枪决。中国官方报纸中国日报星期四的一篇报导援引中国最高人民法院副院长姜兴长的话说，药物注射方式更加人道，已经有半数的中级人民法院采用药物注射执行死刑。这些法院执行的死刑占中国全国死刑的大多数。姜兴长说，所有法院最终都将采用药物注射死刑方式，但是他没有提改变死刑执行方式的日期。
人权组织经常批评中国实施死刑，并且在死刑数据上缺乏透明度。
A top Chinese judicial official says China is considering expanding the use of lethal injections for death sentences instead of execution by gunshot. A report Thursday in the state-run China Daily newspaper quotes the vice president of the Supreme People’s Court, Jiang Xinchang, as saying that lethal injections were more humane and notes that already half of the country’s Intermediate People’s Courts, which carry most of the executions, use lethal injections to carry out executions. Jiang said that lethal injections will eventually be used by all intermediate people’s courts. He stopped short, however, of giving a date for the change.
Human rights groups frequently criticize China’s use of the death penalty and lack of transparency regarding its statistics.