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.

March 16, 2025-March 22, 2025

Chinese Communist Party-run news media continue to denounce plans by a Hong Kong company to sell ports on either end of the Panama Canal, arguing that the canal is a Chinese national security interest; Hong Kong’s Legislative Council approves a cybersecurity law; the city of Tokyo prepares to implement Japan’s first ordinance aimed at curbing harassment of public-facing workers by irate customers; South Korea’s Constitutional Court says it will rule in the impeachment trial of Prime Minister Han Duck-soo next week; Taiwan’s executive puts forward another slate of nominees to fill the bench of its Constitutional Court.

January 19-January 25

Chinese courts hand down death sentences to two men who separately carried out murderous attacks on Japanese residents in China; Hong Kong national security police question staff of the respected Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute in connection with the institute’s exiled former deputy; Japan’s government says that same-sex couples are covered by 24 laws normally reserved for legally recognized marriages; South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol attends hearings in his impeachment trial before the Constitutional Court; Taiwan President Lai Ching-te reluctantly signs a controversial law that hobbles the Constitutional Court as his party seeks to have the law declared unconstitutional.

Professor Jerome Cohen, co-founder and faculty director emeritus of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute, discussed China’s use of law as a tool for repression and the need to continue studying Chinese law in an interview with The Wire China.

China issues new export controls for dual-use goods; a Hong Kong court hears the first legal challenge to the new Safeguarding National Security Ordinance; a Japanese police chief apologizes to an exonerated man who was the world's longest-serving death row inmate; a South Korean court hears arguments about the abortion of 36-week fetus; Taiwan’s Constitutional Court deems unconstitutional key portions of legislation that would have significantly increased the power of the legislature over the executive branch.

China releases a draft Private Economy Promotion Law for public comment, after several difficult years for the country's private sector; Hong Kong's top court hears arguments over whether same-sex couples should enjoy the same inheritance rights as heterosexual married couples.; Japan enacts a law that offers an apology and compensation to victims of forced sterilization; a South Korean woman sues the government and others for facilitating the overseas adoption of her kidnapped daughter; China detains four Taiwanese employees of Foxconn.

China's Supreme People's Court releases an interpretation of tort law; Hong Kong sentences two journalists to prison for sedition; a Japanese court exonerates a man who spent 48 years on death row; South Korea's legislature approves a law that would punish knowingly possessing or viewing deepfake pornography; Taiwan's opposition parties express dissatisfaction with the executive's nominees for the Constitutional Court.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights urges China to investigate and correct alleged human rights violations in Xinjiang; a Hong Kong court convicts two former Stand News editors and its parent company of sedition for publishing 11 articles critical of the government during the 2019 protests; Japanese prosecutors indict a former lawmaker on charges of misusing political funds; South Korea's Constitutional Court orders the government and legislature to rewrite the country's climate change law to include more concrete measures; anti-corruption investigators in Taiwan raid the home and office of former presidential candidate Ko Wen-je, leader of the Taiwan People's Party, in connection with a mall development project while he was Taipei mayor.

China proposes creating a national Internet ID system; a Hong Kong court allows three Tiananmen vigil organizers to appeal their convictions for refusing to provide information to the national security police; Japan considers collecting all civil and administrative court decisions in a single electronic database; Korean victims of Japan’s wartime slavery are stymied in their efforts to collect court-awarded compensation from the Japanese government; Taiwan agrees to compensate the families of two Chinese fishermen who were killed while being chased at sea by Taiwan’s coast guard.

China issues ethical guidelines for human genome research; the Wall Street Journal fires one of its Hong Kong-based reporters following her election to lead the Hong Kong Journalists Association; a married transgender woman in Japan challenges the law preventing her from legally changing her gender unless she divorces her wife; South Korea's Supreme Court rules that persons in same-sex relationships can register their partners as dependents in the national health insurance system; Taiwan’s Constitutional Court temporarily suspends controversial legal revisions that empower lawmakers to require government officials and citizens to testify at investigative hearings.