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May 30, 2006
Violent Crime in China
Attorneys Dan Harris and Steve Dickinson write the China Law Blog, a blog worth your attention if you are interested in business law in China. Dan recently analyzed violent crime statistics in China compared to the United States:
China had 554,000 cases of seriously violent crimes (never defined) last year, down 2.16 percent from 2004.
By way of comparison, there are typically around 16,000 murders in the United States and around 1.3 million violent crimes per year, out of a population of approximately 300 million. Therefore, if China's murder statistics are accurate, one is around four times more likely to be murdered in the United States than in China. If (and this is a big if) violent crime means the same thing in the two countries and if (and this too is a big if) China's statistics are as accurate as the United States, one is around sixteen times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime in the United States as in China.
Accurate? You tell me.
Dan makes the point that the system is set up to probably encourage under-reporting by local officials, as Beijing has mandated that the murder rate will drop in 2007. And there's little doubt that it will.
Just another example of why one should look closely and ask questions about reported statistics in China.
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