September 24-30
China
The Supreme People’s Court, Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and Ministry of Public Security jointly issued guidance on punishing cyber violence. The Guiding Opinion on Punishing Cyber Violence Crimes and Offenses According to the Law《关于依法惩治网络暴力违法犯罪的指导意见》provides harsher punishment for specific types of cyber violence including attacks on vulnerable groups, those carried out by hired teams or using “deep fake” technology, and those involving fabricated sex-related material. The Guiding Opinion also clarifies when online humiliation or defamation reaches the level of criminality. It authorizes protectorates to file public interest litigation against network service providers who fail to act when online violence results in mass dissemination of illegal information. The three entities also released seven typical cyber violence cases.
The National People’s Congress Standing Committee released a five-year legislative plan. The NPC Observer published a detailed analysis of the Standing Committee’s agenda-setting principles, the uncompleted projects in the last plan, and what to watch for in the coming five years.
China Evergrande Group (恒大) announced that its founder and chairman, Xu Jiayin (许家印), also known as Hui Ka Yan in Cantonese, is under criminal investigation and in detention (“subject to mandatory measures”) but did not specify what crimes are alleged. Trading in Evergrande shares has been suspended on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Evergrande, with more than $300 billion in total liabilities, has been working to finalize a government-supervised debt restructuring plan.
Hong Kong
The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) announced new measures to increase the transparency of virtual asset trading platforms (VATPs) following a dozen arrests and allegations of fraud at JPEX, an unlicensed cryptocurrency exchange. JPEX is suspected of defrauding at least 2,305 customers of about HK$1.43 billion (US$182 million) in investments. The SEC’s new measures include publishing lists of licensed, suspicious, and closed VATPs, conducting a campaign to raise public awareness of fraud, and improving its intelligence gathering in the sector.
The head of Hong Kong’s largest journalist organization was sentenced to five days in jail for obstructing a public officer by refusing to present his identity card during a stop-and-search procedure. Ronson Chan Ron-sing, chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, was stopped by a plainclothes police officer who demanded to see his identity card four times. The officer said Chan was uncooperative, questioning her status as an officer and the reason for the check. Chan was released on bail pending an appeal.
Police from Hong Kong, Guangdong, and Macao concluded a special joint operation called Thunderbolt 2023, which aimed at combating organized crime syndicates and cross-border crime. During the operation, conducted between June 12 and September 21, police arrested about 6,400 persons and seized cash, drugs, and illicit goods worth about HK$410 million ($52.4 million).
A Hong Kong youth who was shot during a 2019 anti-government protest pleaded guilty to three charges of attacking a police officer during a riot and attempting to abscond by boat to Taiwan. Prosecutors said that Tsang Chi-kin, then an 18-year-old student, was among a group of protesters who attacked police with hammers, pliers, rods, and umbrellas during a protest in Tsuen Wan on October 1, 2019. Police shot Tsang in the abdomen after the student allegedly swung a rod at a police officer. Tsang and three fellow protesters sought asylum from the US Consulate in Hong Kong in 2020 but were rejected; they then spent 20 months in hiding while seeking to escape from Hong Kong.
Japan
The government announced a program to give certain asylum seekers long-term residence status and the right to work in Japan. The new status will be granted from December 1, 2023 to asylum-seekers fleeing ongoing conflict who fail to meet Japan’s strict definition of “refugees” but are considered in need of “subsidiary protection.” Ukrainians, Syrians, and Afghans are expected to benefit. The new status was approved by parliament in June.
The Supreme Court is deliberating whether to eliminate the surgery requirement for transgender persons seeking to legally change their gender. Current law requires transgender persons to undergo sterilization surgery and have “a body that resembles the genital organs of those of the opposite gender.” The court heard a case brought by a transgender woman who remains officially male in her household registry. The Okayama Family Court in 2019 and a high court in western Japan in 2020 denied her request for a legal gender change.
The National Police Agency said it plans to use AI to scan social media for posts that recruit people to commit fraud and other crimes. They will look for posts that promise large payments for “yami baito,” an expression suggesting illegal work. The cyber patrol center, an organization unaffiliated with police, will conduct the online surveillance work. Posts on X and YouTube will be targeted initially.
Koreas
The South Korean Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional a law that criminalized sending anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets into North Korea. The law was passed by the previous Democratic-led government in 2020 in an effort to promote inter-Korea relations. It made leafleting punishable with up to three years’ imprisonment and a 30 million won (US $22,000) fine. The court agreed with critics who said it was an impermissible restraint on speech.
A South Korean judge denied prosecutors’ application for an arrest warrant against opposition leader Lee Jae-myung on corruption allegations, saying there was not a clear risk that he would destroy evidence. Lee is chairman of the Democratic Party and narrowly lost the presidential election last year to current President Yoon Suk Yeol. Lee has denied the corruption charges. He was released from the detention facility where he had been taken after the National Assembly voted to lift his immunity to arrest last week.
South Korea’s Ministry of Interior and Safety said it is seeking to replace the lifetime ban on public office for anyone committing a sex offense against a minor with a 20-year ban. The Constitutional Court ruled in 2022 that the lifetime ban violated citizens’ rights to take public offices and the principle of proportionality.
North Korea’s Supreme People's Assembly amended the constitution to expand the country’s nuclear forces. The move, while mostly symbolic, reinforces North Korea’s position that denuclearizing, a key demand of the US and its Western allies, is not up for discussion.
Taiwan
The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) of the Judicial Yuan ruled in favor of a transgender women who is seeking to change her legal identity without undergoing surgery to remove her reproductive organs. The court said that a Ministry of Interior executive order requiring surgery “seriously infringes upon bodily rights, medical rights, human dignity, and right of personality” (“嚴重侵害申請人之身體權、健康權、人性尊嚴及人格權”). The plaintiff was denied when she tried to change her gender legally at a household registration office in Kaohsiung, then appealed without success to the Kaohsiung High Administrative Court before taking her case to the SAC. The SAC nullified the Kaohsiung court’s decision and ordered a retrial. The Constitutional Court declined to issue a constitutional interpretation in a similar case, leaving it up to the administrative court system. In 2021, the Taipei Administrative High Court also ruled against the Ministry of Interior requirement, but the ministry has not withdrawn it.
The Financial Supervisory Commission published guidelines for crypto platforms that require the separation of companies’ and customers’ assets, establish review standards for virtual asset listing and de-listing, and strengthen information disclosure. Offshore exchanges that seek to operate in Taiwan must register with the commission. Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is reportedly seeking to operate in Taiwan. Crypto platforms in Taiwan are expected to form an industry association and come up with self-supervisory rules based on the guidelines.