China executes THOUSANDS of people every year not just for drug crimes but even for vaguely defined offenses as "hooliganism". The death penalty is widely supported in China as income disparities rise. Many Chinese think that it is an effective way of deterring economic corruption. If that is true, why is there a perceived "crime wave" sweeping China--specially in the coastal region? Can it be that economic liberalization leads to behaviors perceived as "crimes"? Are there other legal strategies and reactions to these behaviors than criminal punishment?
Its very interesting to note that economic growth when mixed with archaic criminal systems produces high levels of executions: 18th century England went through an execution frenzy as the Industrial Revolution emerged in that country, the United States' "wild west" region saw an explosion in lynchings and mob justice as it underwent a gold rush-powered economic expansion, Brazil's interior was the site of hundreds of vigilante killings in the 1970's as the Amazon interior became commercialized and plugged into the rest of the Brazilian economic infrastructure.
Eventually, the criminal systems and/or [more importantly] criminal procedures in the examples above were changed. We can only hope China goes through the same process.