no govt should be allowed to murder its citizens

The headline is less sever that it looks at a glance.

In the Chinese legal system, a death sentence with a suspended sentence usually means that in the absence of new crimes, the sentence can be commuted to life imprisonment.

That said, it's the age-old is/ought problem of governance. Would love to see China abolish the death penalty. But I'm glad to see someone complicit in social murder through the powers of the state is not held to a lower standard than a peer who committed grievous harm to his neighbors through more direct methods.