China’s National People’s Congress has just approved an ambitious new Ecological and Environmental Code (生态环境法典) to unify and update the country’s previously fragmented ecological and environmental governance framework. USALI visiting scholar Feng Ge assesses the achievements of codification, but notes that the Code weakens the ability of civil society organizations to help enforce the law through environmental public interest litigation.
Japan’s overseas generosity in the form of aid has been a big part of its positive global image. It led the world in ODA for the entire 1990s in terms of total amount. But Hiroaki Shiga warns that Japan is increasingly using its aid program to counter China’s growing geopolitical influence, and in the process is adopting some negative features of Beijing’s approach.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development identifies ensuring equal access to justice for all as one of its specific goals, aligning with the rights proclaimed in multiple international human rights treaties. Taking “equal access to justice” as an entry point, Yizhi Huang’s article compares the 2030 Agenda and international human rights treaties across three dimensions: background, content framework, and monitoring mechanisms. It argues that it is necessary to integrate the human rights mechanisms with the 2030 Agenda and coordinate both approaches in order to enhance judicial protection for vulnerable groups and achieve judicial justice for all.
March 15 - March 21
The US and China discuss creating a formal mechanism to manage bilateral trade and investment, even as the planned summit between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump is postponed; Macau’s legislature passes a bill authorizing closed-door court proceedings in national security cases; a Hong Kong committee investigating the fatal Wang Fuk Court fire of November 2025 hears that a cigarette “most likely” caused the blaze that killed 168 persons; Japan and the United States release a joint plan for building a more resilient supply chain of critical minerals and rare earths; South Korea’s National Assembly approves legislation to restructure the prosecution service into two separate agencies to handle serious crimes investigation and prosecutions; a proposed amendment to Taiwan’s National Security Act that would impose penalties on people advocating for China to take over Taiwan by force draws mixed reactions from security experts.
March 08- March 14
China’s legislature adopts a new five-year plan that prioritizes cutting-edge technological development and greater self-sufficiency in tech; Chinese regulators approve the world’s first commercial use of an implantable brain-computer interface in patients with spinal cord injuries; cybersecurity authorities in mainland China and Hong Kong try to curb enthusiasm for the open-source AI agent OpenClaw; Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s new Japan Growth Strategy Council selects 61 products and technologies for priority public-private investment; South Korea’s Constitutional Court receives its first petitions under a new mechanism that allows appeals from the Supreme Court; Taiwan’s opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan declines to remove a mainland China-born deputy.
March 01 - March 07
China’s National People’s Congress begins its annual plenary session by hearing a government work report that acknowledges slowed economic growth and focuses on rolling out AI and other advanced technologies; the lawyer for Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai says he will not appeal his national security conviction or twenty-year prison sentence; the Tokyo High Court approves disbanding the Unification Church in Japan for systematically coercing its followers to donate money; South Korea announces immigration reforms designed to expand access for skilled foreign workers as it grapples with a shrinking labor force; Taiwan’s Premier Cho Jung-tai again refuses to countersign bills approved by the opposition-controlled legislature, extending a constitutionally dubious practice.
Program on International Law & Relations in Asia
