June 8, 2025-June 14, 2025

Senior Chinese and US negotiators agree on a framework to get their trade negotiations back on track following a series of disputes; Hong Kong and Chinese national security police carry out their first known joint operation; Japan’s political parties fail to agree on new rules for political donations, with the scandal-ridden Liberal Democrats favoring a less restrictive approach; US President Donald Trump signs an executive order paving the way for a Nippon Steel investment in U.S. Steel; two South Korean courts postpone indefinitely criminal trials of newly elected President Lee Jae-myung; prosecutors in Taiwan indict four former members of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party on charges of spying for China.

May 25, 2025-May 31, 2025

China and Japan report progress in talks to lift China’s ban on importing Japanese seafood; Hong Kong hosts a signing ceremony for the new treaty-based International Organization for Mediation; a Japanese court orders the government to compensate three businessmen wrongly accused of exporting goods capable of producing biological weapons; the front-runner in South Korea’s presidential election campaign proposes amending the constitution to make it harder to impose martial law; Taiwan’s Executive Yuan finalizes a controversial set of proposed legal and administrative measures designed to counter Chinese infiltration.

May 11, 2025-May 17, 2025

The US and China deescalate their trade war with an agreement to cancel some tariffs and suspend others for 90 days; a Chinese court sentences a Japanese man to twelve years in prison for alleged espionage; Hong Kong enacts new national security-related legislation to facilitate Beijing directly exercising jurisdiction over selected Hong Kong national security cases; South Korea’s Democratic Party seeks to rescue its presidential candidate from his legal woes by changing the law under which he is charged; Taiwan’s ruling party asks the Constitutional Court to review the constitutionality of opposition-enacted measures that substantially reduce central government revenues.

April 27, 2025-May 6, 2025

China’s legislature approves a law to bolster the private sector and unveils the draft of a comprehensive environmental code; Hong Kong authorities accuse the father and brother of an exiled democracy activist of breaking the law by trying to help her access funds from an insurance policy; Japan’s opposition parties propose legislation that would allow married couples to choose whether to use one family name or separate names; South Korea’s Supreme Court orders a retrial of presidential front-runner Lee Jae-myung on changes of violating the election law; Taiwan’s government revokes the citizenship or permanent residency of about twenty persons as it enforces a widely ignored ban on holding dual Taiwanese and mainland official IDs.

April 13, 2025-April 19, 2025

China accuses the US National Security Agency of hacking infrastructure of the Asian Winter Games, held in Harbin in February; the Hong Kong government moves to tighten control over trade unions based on national security concerns; Japan’s Fair Trade Commission orders Google to stop forcing smartphone manufacturers to pre-install its apps; a South Korean court begins the criminal trial of former President Yoon Suk Yeol on insurrection charges; Taiwan’s Defense Ministry says sixty-two active-duty military personnel have been found to hold Chinese residency permits, and as a result are now barred from handling intelligence and confidential data.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.