Daily Lessons from Life 23 April 2011 - Elite Chinese student gets death for "cruel" crime

"Elite Chinese student gets death for "cruel" crime - CNA 22 April 2011

BEIJING: A Chinese court sentenced a college student to death Friday for murdering a woman he had injured with his car, in a crime that has sparked widespread debate over China's rich "second generation".

Yao Jianxin was given the death penalty in the northern city of Xian after confessing he killed Zhang Miao because he feared the "peasant woman would be hard to deal with" after the accident, the state Xinhua news agency said.

According to media reports, Yao's car hit Zhang, a part-time cafeteria worker and the mother of a two-year-old son, while she was riding her bicycle late on the night of October 20.

The 26-year-old woman only suffered minor injuries but instead of helping her, Yao, 21, stabbed her eight times with a knife as she eyed his car number plate.

The Xian Conservatory of Music student fled the scene but was later caught.

The crime has led to widespread social debate over China's "rich second generation," a well-off group of youths that demands privilege and sometimes lacks morals, after more than 30 years of booming economic growth.

It follows another notorious incident involving a 23-year-old man, Li Qiming, who was sentenced to six years in prison in January after attempting to exploit his father's senior police rank to flee a fatal drink-driving accident.

After running over two young women on a college campus in north China, killing one of them, he shouted, "my father is Li Gang," and dared onlookers to try to stop him leaving the scene.

In its judgement on Yao, the court said his crime was "extremely despicable... and extremely cruel," and warranted the death penalty despite his confession and remorseful attitude, Xinhua said."

These news, unfortunately occupied the headlines well. People are interested to find out what happened when 'injustice' was done to the ordinary people by the so-called 'privileged' 'rich 2nd generation'!

Lessons for me are:

1. it is too late to lament when the youngster committed those crimes which to them probably were justifiable due to the way they were brought up by their parents! Sometimes they get away with things and sometimes, like this time, they do not! They learned to take responsibilty and the consequence of their actions - to their victims and themselves. Often time, it was too little too late!;

2. parental education must be lacking as no parent wants their kids to become monstrous! Many reasons could be offerred but none will cut it when the kids' actions led to death of another human being! Regrets by the parents of the 'wayward' kids will be meaningless most of the time!;

3. will the other parents of the 'rich 2nd generation' and the kids themselves learned from these highly publicised news of the 'misdeeds committed' and the consequences that offenders have to face? I hope so. No matter how rich you are, tremendous wealth will mean nothing if you are sentenced to death penalty for your crimes!!

May the struggle to maintain social justice continue and that more and more such abuses reported and the people live better lives!