Are foreigners granted leniency? An analysis of drug sentencing in China

Drug crimes are socially and politically constructed phenomena that are frequently embedded in narratives about foreign threats and national security. Yet research on how nationality structures sentencing outcomes, particularly in China, remains limited. Analyzing 2804 first-instance drug crime judgments (2017–2019) from the Peking University Law Database, this study reveals a patterned and stratified relationship between nationality and punishment. Foreign defendants generally receive harsher sentences than Chinese citizens, but this disparity varies across groups. Defendants from certain Asian countries face the most severe penalties, whereas African and European/American defendants often receive comparatively lenient outcomes. These results challenge a simple “alien penalty” account and instead point to a differentiated and crime-contingent mechanism in which national origin intersects with security narratives and stereotypes surrounding transnational drug trafficking. The study advances focal concerns theory beyond Western contexts by demonstrating that nationality operates as a hierarchically structured and situationally activated status cue in judicial decision-making. © The Author(s) 2026