May 17– May 23

China strengthens state control over mining, processing, and stockpiling of rare earths and casts doubt on White House assertions that China agreed to address concerns about rare earth shortages; Hong Kong's legislature converts its only authorized protest site into a parking lot; Japan considers expanding the role played by crime victims and bereaved families in criminal proceedings; the South Korean government issues a white paper that pivots the government’s North Korea policy from confrontation to peaceful coexistence; opposition parties in Taiwan’s legislature fail to obtain enough votes to impeach President Lai Ching-te; the reliability of the US defense umbrella is the subject of debate in Taiwan and Washington as US President Trump sends mixed signals about approving a planned $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan.

May 10– May 16

Chinese President Xi Jinping warns US President Donald Trump that mishandling disagreements over Taiwan could push the two countries toward conflict; China's legislature considers the first comprehensive revision of the Agriculture Law since 2002; Japanese legislators begin discussing a draft amendment to the constitution that would allow the Cabinet to extend Diet members’ terms during national emergencies; a South Korean appeals court increases the prison term given to former President Yoon Suk Yeol's interior minister for aiding him in declaring martial law in 2024; Taiwan's Legislative Yuan prepares to vote next week on a motion to impeach President Lai Ching-te that is expected to fail.

May 03– May 09

A Chinese military court sentences two former defense ministers to death with reprieve for corruption; Hong Kong announces plans to require physical door handles on new vehicles from 2027; Japan agrees to negotiate the transfer of demobilized Japanese warships to the Philippines as both countries step up their security arrangements; North Korea revises its constitution to remove longstanding references to reunification with South Korea; South Korea's National Assembly tries but fails to approve a constitutional amendment transferring martial law authority from the president to the legislature; after months of wrangling, Taiwan's opposition-controlled legislature approves a special defense budget that is 40 percent smaller than President Lai Ching-te requested.

April 26– May 02

Chinese market regulators order Meta to unwind its $2 billion-plus acquisition of agentic AI startup Manus despite Manus’ reincorporation in Singapore; Hong Kong presses criminal charges against two men accused of posting social media calls to boycott last year’s Legislative Council elections; Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi convenes an expert panel to review Japan's defense policies and spending levels; former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and his wife, Kim Keon Hee, both receive longer prison terms from an appellate court; a Taiwan court sentences a former TSMC engineer to ten years in prison for passing chip secrets to an equipment supplier.

April 19– April 25

China threatens retaliatory measures if the European Union adopts a proposed cybersecurity law that could push Chinese firms out of the region’s telecommunications networks and other critical infrastructure; Hong Kong's government proposes closer oversight of contractors with respect to fire safety; Japan lifts its own ban on selling lethal weapons to other countries; South Korean prosecutors seek a thirty-year prison term for ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol for allegedly trying to escalate tensions with North Korea in 2024 by sending drones over Pyongyang; Taiwan’s opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan announces plans to hold a roll-call vote May 19 on a motion to impeach President Lai Ching-te, the culmination of a partisan power struggle that began with Lai’s 2024 inauguration.

April 12– April 18

China issues new rules to punish foreign companies or persons who comply with other governments’ sanctions against China; Hong Kong's Security Bureau says 99 percent of young offenders convicted in the 2019 protests have participated in a government rehabilitation program; Japanese political parties are discussing proposals for increasing the number of male heirs in the imperial family; a South Korean court sentences an American YouTube provocateur to prison for offensive live-streamed stunts; Taiwan’s legislature approves a law to establish government oversight of home-based foster care.

April 05 – April 11

Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping meets with the chair of Taiwan’s largest opposition party to make the case that cross-straits relations is a domestic affair; political figures from Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party are critical but restrained in their responses to the meeting; China’s State Council announces a new framework for ensuring industrial supply chain security; Hong Kong authorities continue their securitization of society by linking restaurant licenses to national security conditions; Japanese lawmakers discuss creating a committee to draft revisions to the constitution; South Korea fines Christie's 280 million won after a data breach exposed 620 clients' personal information.

March 29 - April 04

China’s internet regulator proposes rules for a new AI product - digital humans; Chinese leader Xi Jinping purges another Politburo member; Hong Kong’s government seeks to confiscate properties linked to former Apple Daily owner Jimmy Lai's national security offenses; Japan debates a proposal to criminalize damaging the national flag; South Korea’s legislature softens the language used to describe unification with North Korea; the head of Taiwan’s opposition Nationalist Party accepts a controversial invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit.

March 22 - March 28

China announces investigations into US trade practices that disrupt global supply chains and hinder green energy trade; Hong Kong police accuse a bookstore owner and his employees of selling seditious publications; a draft of this year’s edition of Japan’s Diplomatic Bluebook drops the phrase that peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait are important for Japan’s security; North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly reappoints Kim Jong-un to a third term as president of the State Affairs Commission; a Taiwan court convicts former presidential candidate Ko Wen-je of accepting bribes and other charges, and sentences him to seventeen years in prison.

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.

February 22 - February 28

China joins in calls for the US to stop bombing Iran and return to negotiations; the Hong Kong Court of Appeal overturns former publisher Jimmy Lai’s lease fraud conviction as he begins a twenty-year sentence for national security offenses; Japan’s Fair Trade Commission raids the offices of Microsoft Japan on suspicion of anti-competitive conduct; South Korea’s legislature approves controversial legislation that criminalizes intentional misapplication of law by judges and prosecutors and allows litigants to appeal finalized Supreme Court rulings to the Constitutional Court; Taiwan’s intelligence agency completes a decades-long declassification process that raises a curtain on surveillance of political opposition during the martial law era.

February 15 - February 21

China’s Communist Party is denying promotions or even dismissing some officials because they have adult children living overseas; Hong Kong police announce plans to add facial recognition capabilities to their expanding network of CCTV cameras; Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takichi warns of Chinese “coercion” and pledges to strengthen the country’s defenses; a South Korean court sentences former President Yoon Suk Yeol to life in prison for insurrection; the leaders of Taiwan’s legislature pledge to prioritize review of a controversial special defense budget after stalling action for weeks.

February 8 - February 14

China's State Council issues a white paper asserting Beijing has “fundamental responsibility” for national security in Hong Kong; Hong Kong’s High Court sentences Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai to twenty years in prison for writing commentary critical of the government and supporting foreign sanctions against Hong Kong and Chinese officials; Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner win a supermajority in snap elections for the lower house of parliament, reviving talk of revising the “peace constitution”; a South Korean court sentences former Interior Minister Lee Sang-min to seven years in prison for aiding ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol in executing his 2024 martial law decree; Taiwan and the US sign a trade deal capping US tariffs on Taiwanese goods at 15 percent and allowing previously banned US beef and pork into Taiwan.

February 1 - February 7

Chinese President Xi Jinping warns US President Donald Trump to handle arms sales to Taiwan prudently; free-market Hong Kong for the first time says it will draft a five-year economic plan in sync with mainland China; an influential panel of legal experts in Japan votes to preserve prosecutorial powers that block retrials in suspected wrongful conviction cases; five justices of Taiwan’s Constitutional Court issue their third substantive decision since declaring themselves not bound by an unattainably high 2025 quorum requirement.

January 25 - January 31

China says it will take “all necessary measures” to safeguard the rights of Chinese companies after Panama's Supreme Court voids a Hong Kong company’s contracts to operate container ports on the Panama Canal; Hong Kong’s anti-corruption body arrests thirty-three people on charges of defrauding government technology grant programs; Japanese Cabinet ministers approve policies to make it harder for foreigners to become Japanese citizens; a South Korean court convicts the former first lady of accepting bribes and sentences her to twenty months in prison; Taiwan’s Kuomintang Party prepares to resume party-to-party dialogue with China’s Communist Party.

January 18- January 24

China purges two more senior generals, including its top-ranked uniformed officer; a Hong Kong court begins the long-awaited trial of three democracy activists who led annual Tiananmen vigils; a Japanese court sentences the killer of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to life in prison; a South Korean court convicts former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo of aiding an insurrection and sentences him to twenty-three years in prison; Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan blocks the eighth attempt to review President Lai Ching-te’s US$39.6 billion special defense budget.

January 11- January 17

China’s Commerce Ministry says stronger export controls and supply chain security are top priorities for 2026; Hong Kong’s High Court hears arguments about how severe a sentence to give former Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai; the prime ministers of Japan and South Korea - which have had rocky relations in recent years - agree to increase cooperation in economic security, AI, defense, crime fighting, and other areas; a South Korean court sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to five years in prison at the conclusion of the first of a suite of criminal trials stemming from his 2024 declaration of martial law; Taiwan’s opposition-dominated legislature opens public hearings on impeaching President Lai Ching-te as the legislature and executive remain locked in a standoff over the allocation of government funds.