--- description: China's judicial authorities have said the death penalty will be applied to anyone embezzling or taking in bribes 3 million renminbi or more title: This Is How Corrupt You Can Be Before China Executes You image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8260c3db2017a934/69888fdd0a4a22de999c9521/china-police.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [World](/section/world/) ## World Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # This Is How Much Money You Can Take in Bribes Before the Chinese Authorities Execute You by [Hannah Beech / Shanghai](/author/hannah-beech/) ## Hannah Beech / Shanghai Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Apr 19, 2016 6:36 AM CUT  Police stand guard during the third day of the trial of disgraced official Bo Xilai at the Intermediate People's Court in Jinan, Shandong province, on Aug. 24, 2013. Police stand guard during the third day of the trial of disgraced official Bo Xilai at the Intermediate People's Court in Jinan, Shandong province, on Aug. 24, 2013.Mark Ralston—AFP/Getty Images by [Hannah Beech / Shanghai](/author/hannah-beech/) ## Hannah Beech / Shanghai Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Apr 19, 2016 6:36 AM CUT How much is an errant Chinese official’s life worth? Three million renminbi, or $463,000, according to a statement released on April 18 by Chinese judicial authorities. The legal clarification makes the death penalty applicable to anyone who either embezzles, or accepts bribes of, that sum or more. But in certain “especially serious” instances “with extremely vile impact,” like when officials embezzle disaster-relief funds, stealing half that can be grounds for death by firing squad. Previously, the threshold for capital punishment was making away with “a huge amount of money” or “an extremely huge amount of money” — hardly the most precise of measurements. The new criteria, however, specify that “mitigating factors,” which might include cooperating with authorities, can lead to a two-year suspended death sentence and an escape of execution. Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, the ruling Chinese Communist Party has launched an anticorruption campaign that has netted hundreds of thousands of officials. Last year, 16 senior Chinese leaders were convicted of bribery, including the nation’s former security czar Zhou Yongkang. But Zhou, who was accused of running the nation’s vast security apparatus as a personal fiefdom — and before that the nation’s oil industry and the populous province of Sichuan — was not sentenced to death for amassing more than $20 million in bribes, along with his family members. Instead, he was handed a life sentence last June. In 2013, Railways Minister Liu Zhijun earned a suspended death sentence for accepting the equivalent of more than $9.6 million in kickbacks. China executes more people per year than any other nation, although Beijing says the number has dropped in recent years. There are 46 crimes in China that can earn defendants the death penalty. Last year, China dropped certain crimes from its capital-punishment list, including counterfeiting money, weapons smuggling and fabricating rumors to mislead others during wartime. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4298731/this-is-how-much-money-you-can-take-in-bribes-before-the-chinese-authorities-execute-you/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4298731/this-is-how-much-money-you-can-take-in-bribes-before-the-chinese-authorities-execute-you/"},"headline":"This Is How Much Money You Can Take in Bribes Before the Chinese Authorities Execute You","datePublished":"2016-04-19T06:36:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T16:51:03.802Z","description":"Any less, and you'll get away with a lengthy jail sentence. 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