August 13-19
China
China’s National Bureau of Statistics said it will stop reporting youth unemployment data as the country’s economic slump deepened. The urban youth unemployment rate was reported at a record high of 21.3% in June. Spokesperson Fu Linghui said the bureau is reconsidering how it measures youth unemployment, including whether to count college students who seek internships while in school, and whether the age range for “youth” should be adjusted. It currently includes persons 16 to 24 years of age.
Ten government and Communist Party departments jointly issued a document ordering increased oversight of various kinds of public-facing forums, which they said was needed due to irregularities in the organization and operation of such activities. The notice said that host organizations (主管机关) are responsible for reviewing and managing the theme, content, and process of public forums, preregistering them, and obtaining necessary approvals. Venue operators and media are barred from providing services for events not properly registered, and violations will be recorded in the social credit management system.
A report published by the Supreme People’s Court said the crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble (寻衅滋事行为) has been used excessively in recent years. In a research report on crime in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, a senior SPC judge said authorities can readily apply the charge to a broad range of behaviors because of its “unclear boundaries,” with the results that some actions worthy at most of administrative penalties have been elevated to fit the criminal charge. It suggested that the SPC give lower courts better guidance on its use. For years, defense lawyers and at least one legislator have criticized police for using it as an all-purpose tool for social control. Persons have been charged with the crime for public drunkenness, fighting, publishing false information online, petitioning, and criticizing the government.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong Court of Appeal overturned one of two convictions of seven leading democracy activists for their role in an unauthorized protest in 2019. A three-judge panel held that there was no evidence the defendants played any role in planning, organizing, or issuing any instructions before or during the march. However, the judges upheld the activists’ conviction for participating in the demonstration. The seven are former Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai, lawyers Martin Lee and Margaret Ng, activists Lee Cheuk-yan and Leung Kwok-hung, and former lawmakers Cyd Ho and Albert Ho.
The High Court has proposed to further delay the national security trial of former Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai. Lai has been detained since December 2020 and is currently held in solitary confinement in a maximum-security facility. His trial was originally scheduled for December 2022 but was postponed to September 2023 to allow the government to fight Lai’s effort to be defended by a UK barrister. The further delay is reportedly to allow one of the assigned judges, Alex Lee, to conclude the ongoing trial of leading pan-democratic politicians.
Japan
The government is proposing legislation that would require schools and nursery schools to check whether prospective hires have committed sex crimes. The plan, modeled after the UK's Disclosure and Barring Service, would require applicants to provide certificates indicating no history of sex offenses.
Japanese Digital Minister Taro Kono said he will voluntarily return three months of his salary to take responsibility for errors involving the “My Number” national identification system. Since 2016, every citizen and foreign resident in Japan is given a 12-digit number that links various kinds of personal data, such as taxes, social security, and insurance information. So far 940 cases have been reported in which bank accounts have been linked to the wrong ID number. The government has been criticized for its slow response to the problems.
Koreas
The United Nations Security Council held its first open meeting on North Korea’s human rights situation since 2017. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said North Koreans are suffering from severe economic hardship and political repression. North Korea has yet to lift COVID restrictions that have kept almost all foreigners, including UN staff, out of the country. The Security Council took no action, but afterward US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield read a statement condemning North Korea on behalf of 52 countries. Russia and China opposed the meeting, saying that the North Korean human rights situation does not pose a threat to international peace and security.
The North Korean police are reportedly detaining women who wear shorts above the knees. They are carrying out a campaign to enforce the two-year-old Rejection of Reactionary Thought and Culture Act, which forbids a wide range of behaviors considered anti-socialist. While the law should apply to both sexes, some residents say it is being enforced chiefly against women.
Taiwan
The Constitutional Court upheld a Supreme Court procedural rule that requires certain cases that ping-pong between the Supreme Court and lower courts to continue being assigned to the same Supreme Court judge for greater efficiency. Fifty-two persons whose cases were affected by the rule, including 35 death row prisoners, challenged its constitutionality. But the Constitutional Court said in its judgment that requiring the same judge to deal with a case more than once does not contravene the right to appeal as stipulated in Article 16 of the Constitution. However, the court agreed that the rules governing when Supreme Court judges should recuse themselves should be made more clear and gave the legislature two years to do so.
The Kuomintang’s presidential candidate, Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), a former police official, said he will resume executions if elected and that Taiwan should keep its death penalty. The remark followed a recent Ministry of Justice statement that none of the 38 persons currently on death row can be executed because they have pending appeals or constitutional petitions. Taiwan’s last execution was in 2020. President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has said that “abolishing the death penalty is a universal goal,” although executions have been carried out during her administration.
The chairman of the small Taiwan Statebuilding Party (TSP) urged the government to amend the National Security Act to raise the penalties for persons who spy on behalf of China. Because Taiwan does not treat the People’s Republic of China as a foreign country, it does not impose heavy punishment on persons convicted of spying for China, said Wang Hsing-huan (王興煥).