This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

April 6, 2025-April 12, 2025

The Chinese government responds to rising US tariffs with higher tariffs of its own, warning: “We don’t back down”; Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal loses another overseas non-permanent judge; leading members of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party confirm that Chinese officials ordered the party to dissolve; a Japanese legislative commission debates whether and how to address online disinformation and misinformation; South Korea’s acting president fills the Constitutional Court’s nine-member bench; partisan turmoil continues on the floor of the Taiwan legislature.

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

March 30, 2025-April 5, 2025

China responds to new US tariffs with reciprocal tariffs plus a wide array of sanctions and investigations against US companies; Hong Kong’s new police commissioner promises action against pockets of “soft resistance”; political parties in Japan negotiate changes to draft legislation on active cyberdefense in an effort to address privacy concerns; South Korea’s Constitutional Court unanimously upholds the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol; three staff members of Taiwan’s ruling three Democratic Progressive Party are being investigated on suspicion of spying for the Chinese Communist Party.

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

March 23, 2025-March 29, 2025

Chinese authorities release five Chinese employees of the American due diligence firm the Mintz Group after holding them for two years without trial; a Japanese court strips the Unification Church of its status as a religious organization; the clock is ticking in the impeachment trial of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol as the Constitutional Court continues its deliberations; Taiwan’s Executive Yuan approves a proposal to establish a Personal Data Protection Commission.

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

March 9, 2025-March 15, 2025

China calls for stronger legal measures against Taiwan independence; Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal makes plans to live-stream some hearings; Japan’s government considers moves to speed up criminal retrials to correct injustices; police in South Korea increase security measures in anticipation of a Constitutional Court ruling next week in the impeachment trial of President Yoon Suk Yeol; Taiwan President Lai Ching-te proposes legal and economic measures to counter Chinese infiltration of Taiwan’s society.

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

March 2, 2025-March 8, 2025

China’s National People’s Congress opens its annual plenary session; Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeals overturns the convictions of three former organizers of the city’s annual Tiananmen vigil for refusing to provide information to police; a fourth Japanese high court rules that failure to legally recognize same-sex marriage is unconstitutional but denies damages to the plaintiffs; South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol leaves a detention center after 52 days of captivity but his impeachment and criminal trials continue; Taiwan authorities consider making it harder for emigres from Hong Kong and Macau to become eligible for permanent residency in Taiwan.

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

February 23, 2025-March 1, 2025

Western governments and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees condemn Thailand’s deportation of 40 Uyghur asylum seekers to China; a Hong Kong court convicts former lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting of rioting during the 2019 Yuen Long MTR incident and sentences him to 37 months in prison; a Tokyo court finds a former Chinese employee of Japan’s state-run research body guilty of giving confidential data to a Chinese company; South Korea’s Constitutional Court wraps up its hearings in the impeachment trial of President Yoon Suk Yeol; a Taiwan court acquits a retired rear admiral and three other defendants of charges that they accepted money from China to develop spy networks in Taiwan.

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

February 16, 2025-February 22, 2025

A coordinated operation by the Thai, Chinese, and Myanmar governments achieves the release of hundreds of foreign nationals forced to work in telecoms fraud operations in Myanmar; Hong Kong’s Democratic Party studies measures to dissolve itself; a court in Japan convicts a would-be assassin of former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and sentences him to ten years in prison; criminal proceedings begin against South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol as he continues to battle impeachment; Taiwan praises and China condemns the US Department of State for removing a statement on its web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence.

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

February 9, 2025-February 15, 2025

China’s Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate issue new typical cases; the chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association sues her former employer, the Wall Street Journal; President Donald Trump’s comments that Nippon Steel would invest in US Steel instead of pursuing a takeover reportedly took both companies by surprise; South Korea’s opposition-led National Assembly calls on Acting President Choi Sang-mok to completely fill the bench of the Constitutional Court as it hears the impeachment trial of President Yoon Suk Yeol; Taiwan’s opposition-controlled legislature votes to impose new requirements to initiate the recall of elected officials.

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

February 2, 2025-February 8, 2025

China files a WTO complaint against the US in response to President Trump’s 10% tariff on Chinese imports; the long-running national security trial of former Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai resumes after a lunar new year break with the prosecutor challenging Lai’s credibility; Japan’s National Police Agency says the number of reported crimes rose in 2024 due to increased investment fraud and social media scams but remains below historic highs; South Korea’s Constitutional Court schedules the start of its impeachment trial of Prime Minister Han Duck-soo; partisan groups in Taiwan submit petitions to launch recall campaigns against each other’s legislators.

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

January 12-January 18

China’s Supreme People’s Court interprets the marriage and family law in an effort to resolve contentious issues such as child custody; former Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai appeals his 2022 fraud conviction; a Japanese district court orders the government to compensate a detainee for positioning a surveillance camera in his cell; South Korean investigators seek a court warrant to formally arrest President Yoon Suk Yeol; legislators from Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party petition the Constitutional Court to review controversial amendments that could paralyze the court itself.

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

January 5-January 11

A Chinese court sentences the maker of a documentary film on the 2022 “white paper” protests; a Hong Kong appeals court hears arguments from former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China that they did not receive a fair trial; Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel sue the US government, the head of a rival steelmaker, and a union chief; South Korean law enforcement authorities meet to discuss making a second attempt to detain impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol; 90 Taiwanese academics publish an open letter decrying the legislature’s passage of a controversial amendment to the Constitutional Court Procedures Act.

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

December 29 - January 4

Chinese prosecutors press charges against 39 persons accused of running one of the largest telecom scam operations in the Myanmar-China border region; the president of Hong Kong’s legislature defends its record of green-lighting government proposals; Japan’s Nippon Steel Corp. reportedly prepares to file a lawsuit after US President Biden blocked its planned acquisition of U.S. Steel; South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, facing impeachment and possible criminal charges for declaring martial law, fights back with the support of loyalists in the security forces; a Taiwan court orders former Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Ko Wen-je and three co-defendants in a corruption case to be returned to detention.

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

December 22 - December 28

China’s legislature says it will rein in courts that are holding original shareholders liable for company debts even after transferring their shares; Hong Kong police add six names to a wanted list of exiled political activists; the upper house of Japan’s parliament approves restrictions on controversial political funds; South Korea’s National Assembly impeaches the acting president in a deepening political crisis; Taiwan’s legislature rejects all seven of President Lai Ching-te’s nominees for the Constitutional Court, effectively paralyzing the court.

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

December 15 - December 21

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denies that the government operates secret police stations abroad; Hong Kong’s chief executive supports using ballot boxes that will scan voters’ ballots in next year’s legislative election; Japan’s lower house agrees to abolish controversial policy activity funds that lawmakers can spend without disclosure; South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol defies summons from investigators seeking to question him about his attempt to impose martial law; Taiwan’s opposition parties pass controversial legislation to constrain the Constitutional Court, raise the threshold for recalls, and channel tax revenues to local governments.

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

December 8 - December 14, 2024

China and the US renew the seminal US-China Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement; a Hong Kong court convicts a former Democratic Party lawmaker of rioting in 2020; a third Japanese high court rules that the country's lack of legal recognition of same-sex marriage is unconstitutional; South Korea’s National Assembly votes to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol over his short-lived declaration of martial law; Taiwan’s Nationalist Party proposes steps to make it harder for Taiwan’s president to impose martial law.

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

December 1 - December 7, 2024

TikTok’s CEO says he will appeal to the US Supreme Court to block his company’s ban in the US; a Hong Kong court retries a social worker accused of rioting for trying to liaise between protesters and police in 2019; tens of thousands of South Koreans protest outside the National Assembly, demanding the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol after he attempted to impose martial law; partisan scuffles again disrupt proceedings in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan as the Democratic Progressive Party and Nationalist Party are unable to reach agreement across a host of issues

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

November 24, 2024-November 30, 2024

China releases three American prisoners in exchange for four Chinese citizens held in the US; Hong Kong’s apex court upholds lower court judgments recognizing public housing benefits and inheritance rights for same-sex married couples; the Japan Fair Trade Commission searches the offices of Amazon’s Japanese unit for alleged violations of the anti-monopoly law; a South Korean court clears the leader of the main opposition party of charges that he forced a witness to commit perjury; the Taiwan government expresses disappointment that member of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership meeting in Vancouver did not initiate Taiwan’s accession process.

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

November 17, 2024-November 23, 2024

A Chinese transgender woman wins compensation from a hospital that subjected her to electroshock without her consent in an effort to “cure” her; Hong Kong’s High Court gives prison terms to 45 of the city’s leading pro-democracy politicians for holding an unauthorized primary election in 2020; a Japanese public interest litigation group challenges the power of judges to restrict the clothing that people wear in court; South Korea’s audit agency accuses former senior government officials of intentionally delaying deployment of a US advanced missile defense system; Taiwan’s finance minister promises lawmakers to look into ways of collecting income tax on profits from cryptocurrency trading.

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

November 10, 2024-November 16, 2024

Chinese police detain a man who they say drove his car into a group of people exercising at a sports center, killing 35; a Hong Kong reporter files a wrongful dismissal claim against the Wall Street Journal for firing her weeks after her election as the leader of the city’s largest press group; a South Korean court convicts opposition leader Lee Jae-myung of making false statements during his presidential campaign and gives him a suspended prison sentence; Japan’s prime minister keeps his job and vows to crack down on misuse of political funds; lawyers in Taiwan protest against proposed legislation that could paralyze the Constitutional Court.

This Week in Asian Law

This Week in Asian Law

November 3, 2024-November 9, 2024

China revises its Anti-Money Laundering Law to address new forms of money laundering; the Hong Kong Law Society sends warning letters to sixteen lawyers associated with a fund that supported legal aid for 2019 protesters; Japanese opposition parties agree that the law governing political funds needs revision but not how to revise it; South Korea' fines Meta $15 million for collecting and sensitive user data and sharing it with advertisers; Taiwan's Ministry of Justice withdraws a proposal to increase the fines for various abortion-related illegal acts following an outcry from women's rights groups.