During the postwar period Japan was well known for its active role in promoting nuclear disarmament and its anti-war constitution. However, increasing security threats from China and North Korea caused a reevaluation of Japan’s security needs and a new emphasis on deterrence. How can Japan support both nuclear disarmament and nuclear deterrence? Nobumasa Akiyama, professor at the School of International and Public Policy and the Graduate School of Law at Hitotsubashi University (Tokyo), director of the Center for Disarmament, Science and Technology at the Japan Institute of International Affairs, and a leading expert on Japan’s nuclear arms policy, will discuss how Japan’s policy might reconcile these conflicting interests and the likely effect of Japan’s nuclear policy on regional and global efforts aimed at both nuclear arms control and collective security.
The Teaching and Researching International Law in Asia (TRILA) programme, based at the Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore, builds on a decades-long tradition of advancing and enhancing the teaching and researching of international law in Asia. More than the strengthening and fostering of teaching and research cultures, TRILA also aims to cultivate a vibrant community of international law scholars across the Asian region. Tony Anghie, the head of TRILA will reflect on the evolution and impact of TRILA and explore the changing landscape of legal academia in Asia. The conversation will situate TRILA within the broader Global South and international efforts to rethink the teaching of international law and the role of Asian scholars in changing and reshaping international law.
Note: This event was originally scheduled for April 3.
We continue our speaker series about Taiwan’s status in the world with a look at its relationship with the European Union. None of the EU’s twenty-seven member states has diplomatic relations with Taiwan, but nineteen member states and the EU itself have opened quasi-embassies there and the EU holds a ministerial-level trade and investment dialogue with its government. In recent years, as tensions with China have heightened over trade disputes and the war in Ukraine, the EU Parliament has increasingly emphasized Taiwan’s shared democratic values and their similar experiences living with a powerful, authoritarian neighbor. Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, a scholar who divides her time between Brussels and Taiwan, will unpack the drivers and limitations of Europe’s affinity for Taiwan.
The deep partisan divisions rending Taiwan's government are no secret. Legislative push-back to President Lai Ching-te’s budgets has received international attention. Yinn-Ching Lu writes that much less attention has been paid both abroad and within Taiwan to a different manifestation of the power struggle between the branches: near-paralysis of the government appointment process. Critical institutions’ leadership ranks are being decapitated by the legislature’s refusal to approve presidential nominees, a phenomenon that Lu says may ultimately be more damaging to Taiwan’s democracy.
The chairwoman of Taiwan’s Nationalist (Kuomintang) Party, Cheng Li-wun, has a message for Americans: Taiwan should not be the next Ukraine. Rather, Taiwan should reconcile with China and seek to carve out some kind of autonomy within “the great Chinese nation.” Katherine Wilhelm writes that most of Taiwan’s 23 million people do not identify as Chinese, but they are deeply divided over whether the best way to preserve their way of life is befriending China or arming against China.
Few people outside of China’s legal elites have heard of the “foreign-related rule of law” policy. Yet this awkwardly named policy was a big reason that Chinese President Xi Jinping was able to stage his recent summit with US President Donald Trump in a posture of apparent parity. Katherine Wilhelm writes that “foreign-related rule of law” produced the critical minerals export control regime that enabled Xi to force Trump into a tariff truce.
July 26 – August 01
China threatens to retaliate after the US Federal Communications Commission restricts imports of foreign-made humanoid and quadruped robots; yet another Hong Kong bookstore says it will shut down after authorities accuse it of selling seditious books; a panel of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party proposes allowing government agencies to intercept private communications for national security purposes without a court warrant; South Korea’s legislature strips prosecutors of the power to investigate crimes; Taiwan says it is working with US authorities to halt smuggling of advanced AI chips to China.
July 19 – July 25
Reactions across East Asia are muted to the Trump administration’s latest new tariffs; China adds fourteen European entities to an export control list in retaliation for the European Union sanctioning fourteen Chinese mainland and Hong Kong enterprises; the former leader of Hong Kong’s disbanded Democratic Party flees to the UK; Japan’s Diet authorizes the prime minister to designate a “backup” capital to handle major government functions in the event of a natural disaster striking Tokyo; the Seoul High Court acquits a woman who had been convicted of murder for terminating her pregnancy at thirty-six weeks; Taiwan’s legislature approves savings accounts for children into which the government will make annual deposits in an effort to boost the birthrate.
July 12 – July 18
Twenty-nine countries establish a Chinese-led artificial intelligence cooperation organization in Shanghai; Hong Kong national security police raid two more bookstores and arrest five booksellers on suspicion of selling seditious books; Japan's Diet enacts election-misinformation measures requiring labels on AI-generated images, as well as a controversial law that punishes publicly damaging or defacing the national flag; South Korea’s National Assembly wrestles with sweeping changes to its Criminal Procedure Act, including a controversial proposal to strip prosecutors of all investigatory powers; Taiwan's opposition-controlled legislature moves to put referendum proposals about restoring nuclear power and legalizing euthanasia on the November ballot.
Program on International Law & Relations in Asia
Chinese Communist Party (CCP or Party) General Secretary Xi Jinping first mentioned FRROL in an internal Party meeting in 2019 in the context of discussing law’s role in economic development. Over the past five years alone, Chinese scholars have produced more than 2,000 articles on various aspects of FRROL, yet English-language treatment remains sparse and fragmented. To assess how this agenda is taking shape across legal domains, the U.S.–Asia Law Institute (USALI) at NYU School of Law and NYU Shanghai Professor Marie Adele Carrai convened the “Decoding China’s Foreign-Related Rule of Law” workshop on November 21–22, 2025. The gathering followed an initial workshop on FRROL at NYU Shanghai in April 2025.