Bae, Sangmin. "Is the Death Penalty an Asian Value?". Asian Affairs, Vol.39, No.1 (2008): 47-56.

Bae, Sangmin. "Is the Death Penalty an Asian Value?". Asian Affairs, Vol.39, No.1 (2008): 47-56.

• In the past 50 years, numerous steps have been taken both by individual nations and within the context of larger organizations such as the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the UN General Assembly, which aim to abolish the death penalty. This has marked a shift in the issue of capital punishment from a purely domestic affair of criminal justice to an international issue falling within the human rights regime (47-48).
• The first generation of death penalty abolition lies within Western Europe, where humanitarian and religious motivations following the Second World War, partially driven by the immense violence of the previous period, motivated the abolition of capital punishment (48).
• The second generation of death penalty abolition exists in Africa and the former Soviet Union, where most countries have abolished the death penalty sometime around the end of the Cold War, with the exception of Belarus. These countries largely abolished the death penalty to comply with international standards created by the West, not for domestic or humanitarian reasons (48). 
• The Western European states which have abolished the death penalty have aggressively supported its abolition elsewhere, making abolition a requirement for membership to cool organizations like the Council of Europe and the European Union. This placed immense pressure on Eastern European states to abolish capital punishment (49).
• This trend toward abolition and moratorium on the death penalty is largely absent in Asia, where only 9 countries as of the publication of this paper had abolished the death penalty and four -- China, Malaysia, Iran, Vietnam, and Singapore -- were among the most frequent practitioners. The arguments by these Asian heads of state in favour of capital punishment have largely revolved around the non-universality of human rights and the clash between the abolition of the death penalty and 'Asian values' held in those countries (49).
• There are numerous critiques of this Asian exceptionalism in both the West and East, as many decry the argument revolving around Asian values as an excuse to avoid the political ramifications involved in obligations to universal human rights (50). This is especially true against the claim that human rights are Western, as a number of former colonies participated in drafting the UN Charter and the the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (52).
• China, by far the world's most prolific executioner, with anywhere from 1,000 to 8,000 executions annually, has tried to respond the human rights concerns in other ways. In 2005, the government switched from firing squad to lethal injection as the primary method of execution -- claiming the switch has in accordance with human rights (50).
• The 1993 Bangkok Declaration on Human Rights, signed by a number of Asian nations, affirms a commitment to general human rights, but rejects universalism or the use of human rights as a tool of political pressure: "While human rights are universal in nature, they must be considered in the context of a dynamic and evolving process of international norm-setting, bearing in mind the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds" (51).
• Singapore in particular has been instrumental in arguing the exceptionalism of Asian values within standards of human rights. Senior Minister of Singapore has said that, "The basic difference in our approach springs from our traditional Asian value system, which places the interests of the community over and above that of the individual. In criminal law legislation, our priority is the security and well being of law-abiding citizens rather than the rights of the criminal to be protected from incriminating evidence" (51).
• This claim fall within a wider context of Singaporean nationalism based on the creation of unique Asian values. These come from an intensely nationalist background along the lines of "nation before community, and society above self", and very different from traditional communitarianism (52).
• The central claim being advanced by many pro-death penalty figures in Asia is that the individualist focus in Western human rights is not compatible with the community-focus of Asian culture. It follows that the death penalty is justified in this case, because the individual right to life is subordinated to community needs to maintain order in a way not accepted in the West. An obvious objection to this being the assumption that 'community' is represented by the state (52).
• Many arguments can also be offered about the applicability of certain elements of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights to the death penalty and capital punishment. While the West general sees capital punishment as cruel and degrading, there are numerous objections to this. Governments also claim that some crimes are so damaging to the rights of others, that one's own rights are forfeit, justifying the execution of major criminals (53).
• The author argues that truly traditional Asian values represented by Confucius do not agree with modern interpretations, and that in fact Confucian philosophy argued against the death penalty. Confucius argued that rulers should lead by inculcation of goodness, and as such capital punishment would not be necessary if the ruler were educating his citizens properly (53). In a single phrase, Confucius also called the death penalty cruel, indicating some overlap between traditional Asian and Western concepts of capital punishment (54).
• The blame placed on Western culture and the general hostility towards the West in these regions is less connected to any Western influence, then the process of modernization which Asia is undergoing. The social problems attributed to Western values: violence, crime, drug and sex abuse, and breakdown of family life; are actually the result of industrialization (54).
• Many different Asian traditions, including common schools of thought within Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, and Confucian tradition, have all argued against the death penalty and advanced universal human rights. The reasons for the rejection of these traditions in favour of retentionist traditions is routed into the politics of contemporary Asia (55).