He Jiahong

Education and career

He Jiahong was born in Beijing on 10 May 1953. At the age of sixteen Jiahong went to live on a farm in Heilongjiang Province, where he began writing his first novel. In 1977 Jiahong returned to Beijing, and then went on to sit and pass the university entrance exam and was eventually accepted to the Renmin University of China.

Jiahong achieved a Bachelor of Law from Renmin University of China in 1983, followed by a Master of Law in 1986. Jiahong later obtained a Doctor of Juridical Science at Northwestern University in 1993, composing his thesis on “Criminal Prosecution in the PRC and the USA: A Comparative Study”.

Jiahong has spent most of his professional career at the Renmin University of China, and has since become Director of the Institute of Evidence Law when the institute was established in 2006, and the Director of the Research Centre of Wrongful Convictions established in March 2012.

Jiahong is involved in Anti-Corruption in China, and has proposed a form of amnesty that will give officials until the end of 2013 to declare their assets publicly. Which is a similar move that Hong Kong's government adopted in 1977. In an article in the Guardian newspaper in the UK he was quoted as saying: “There were so many officials who committed corruption and it affected so many people's lives. I thought by choosing this course I could do something meaningful to change things."

In an interview featured in Voice of America, Jiahong further raised his concerns about the state of the Chinese criminal system stating "It's just a nominal proceeding of the whole proceeding to make a decision about the case. Especially for this kind of highly political cases, the decision has already been made, but then they have to go through the trial." when referring to the trial of Chinese politician Bo Xilai.

Jiahong is deputy director of a team that are helping to train masters students to investigate cases of occupational crimes by public officials, including interrogation of suspects and administering lie detector tests.

Writing and editing

In addition to his university work, He Jiahong is a writer and editor. Jiahong has acted as chief editor for over thirty books, including treatises and textbooks such as ""Prosecution Comparative Study"".(ISBN 978-7-80185-941-9)

Furthermore Jiahong writes detective novels, centred around a character known as Hong Jun, a lawyer. The first book, Crime of Blood, originally written in Chinese has now been translated into French, Italian and Spanish. In 2012 the book was also translated into English, with the title Hanging Devils: Hong Jun Investigates.

According to the Shenzhen Daily in April 2011, Crime of Blood allows Jiahong to ‘combine his passion for literature and his professional knowledge of the Chinese legal system, reflecting China’s society and development with his years of experience in legal procedures and criminal investigation’.

Marilyn Mai of The Beijinger said that Crime of Blood (Hanging Devils) was "great fireside read", also adding "the case is based on true events, and the story itself is enough to keep those pages turning". In 2008, Bertrand Mialaret said "These novels are read with pleasure, the mystery plot is interesting", also noting that the central character, Hong Jun has "Many moral qualities and very little interest in politics".

Catherine Sampson, of the Guardian newspaper ranked Crime of Blood among her top ten Asian crime-fiction novels.

He Jiahong’s non-fiction works in English include Criminal Prosecution in the PRC and the USA: A Comparative Study], written with Professor Emeritus Jon R. Waltz; Exploration of the Path of Fighting Corruption with Chinese Characteristics and Empirical Studies of Wrongful Convictions in Mainland China (with He Ran).