October 22-28
China
The National People’s Congress Standing Committee released the texts of six bills for public comment through November 23, 2023. Among them is the draft amendment to the Law on Guarding State Secrets, which includes new clauses that expand the law’s coverage. The National Administration of State Secrets Protection and its branches at various levels are given new powers to investigate cases related to state secrets. State employees with access to classified information will be banned from traveling overseas without prior approval, including for a period of time after they leave the job or retire.
The Standing Committee approved a new Patriotic Education Law to promote patriotism across society. Targets of education include children, employees of government departments, enterprises and public institutions, residents of urban and rural areas, residents of Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, and overseas Chinese. Patriotic education is defined as including ideology and politics, history and culture, national symbols, the beauty of the motherland, national unity and ethnic solidarity, national security and defense, and the deeds of heroes and role models. The law will take effect on Jan. 1, 2024.
Supreme People’s Court President Zhang Jun pledged to crack down on terrorism and cross-border crime to protect the Belt and Road Initiative, and called for more judicial cooperation with other countries to guarantee security and development. In remarks at the Maritime Silk Road International Forum on Judicial Cooperation in Quanzhou, Zhang said close communication and collaboration could focus on “combating cross-border crime, building a judicial counter-terrorism mechanism, curbing the spread of terrorism, and joining hands in combating cross-border maritime crimes.” He said China has concluded 171 bilateral treaties on mutual legal help with 83 countries, and joined nearly 30 international conventions that cover legal help and extradition.
Authorities reportedly have detained two Chinese —one working for a Japanese firm in China and the other working for a state-owned enterprise that trades with the Japanese firm —both in connection with an alleged leak of information about rare-earth metals. The Japanese news agency Kyodo cited unidentified sources familiar with bilateral relations. It said the detentions occurred in March. Rare earths are used in the manufacture of high-tech products.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong’s ranking on the World Justice Project’s global rule of law index fell for the third consecutive year, dropping to 23rd place from last year’s 22nd place. In 2020, the city was ranked at No. 16. The index assesses the extent of rule of law of 142 countries or regions based on eight criteria, including constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights order and security, enforcement of regulations, civil justice, and criminal justice. The project said that Hong Kong has experienced a significant decline in constraints on government powers, but continues to do well in terms of order and security, absence of corruption, and fundamental rights.
Chief Executive John Lee said during his second annual policy address that Hong Kong will enact its own national security law by the end of 2024, partly in response to what he called continued meddling in Hong Kong affairs by “external forces." Although the Chinese National People’s Congress enacted a National Security Law for Hong Kong in 2020, Art. 23 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law calls for the special administrative region to enact its own law to address security-related crimes.
Google said it rejected a Hong Kong police request to remove from YouTube five videos featuring a film about former Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai. The film, “The Hong Konger,” is a documentary about Lai that has amassed 2.8 million views since being uploaded in April. According to Google’s latest transparency report, police requested its removal that same month on the grounds that the content was seditious and “would amount to criminal contempt of Court as the activist’s trial was ongoing.” Google said requests from the Hong Kong government to remove material rose from 57 items in 2019 to 122 in 2020 and 330 in 2022.
Hong Kong’s Court of Appeal upheld a ruling in favor of equal inheritance rights for same-sex couples. Hong Kong does not allow for same-sex marriages, leading some couples to get married abroad. "There's no reason why foreign same-sex marriages cannot be similarly admitted as a matter of principle of equality of treatment," the judges wrote. A lower court ruled in 2020 that same-sex married couples should enjoy equal rights under the city's inheritance laws, but the government appeal. Last week, Hong Kong's Court of Appeal also dismissed a government bid to deny same-sex married couples the right to rent and own public housing last week.
A Hong Kong student pleaded guilty to sedition over 13 pro-independence posts that she made on social media, most while she was outside Hong Kong in Japan. Defense lawyers for Mika Yuen Ching, 23, initially suggested that the Hong Kong court might not have jurisdiction to hear the case, since the posts were published abroad. But they abandoned this argument as Ching did not delete the posts after returning from Japan. She will be sentenced next month. Sedition is punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment for a first conviction.
Hong Kong’s national security police arrested two lawyers after they allegedly tried to carry a letter from their client out of jail after meeting with him. According to a post on the Facebook account of the detained activist, Owen Chow Ka-shing, prison authorities arrested him and his lawyers after they tried to mail a complaint letter to the ombudsman on Chow's behalf. The post said jail officials had blocked Chow from receiving books on Buddhism, and also obstructed letters of complaint. Chow is among 47 activists and former politicians on trial for their roles in organizing an unofficial primary election for the Legislative Council in 2020.
Japan
The Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a requirement that transgender persons undergo sterilization surgery before they can officially change their gender. The court did not rule, however, on the constitutionality of requiring other gender-affirmation surgery. Legal gender change in Japan requires a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, being at least 18 years of age, being unmarried, and having no underage children. In addition to the now eliminated requirement that the person have no functional reproductive glands, it requires that the person's genitals resemble “those of the opposite gender." The Supreme Court asked the lower court to deliberate further on that last requirement.
A growing number of Japanese municipalities have introduced ordinances banning the outing of a person's sexual orientation or gender without their consent. Outing was defined as a form of abuse of power in the guidelines for legislation that came into effect in June 2020 on women's empowerment and harassment regulation. As of Oct. 1, the number of municipalities with anti-outing ordinances was 26, a five-fold increase in three years.
Koreas
South Korea’s Supreme Court ordered a retrial in a controversial criminal defamation case against a scholar accused of defaming the Korean victims of sexual slavery during Japanese colonial rule. Park Yu-ha, an emeritus professor at Seoul’s Sejong University, wrote in her 2013 book “Comfort Women of the Empire” that comfort women were proud of their jobs and had comrade-like relationships with Japanese soldiers, and that the Japanese military wasn’t officially involved in the forced mobilization of sex slaves. The Seoul High Court convicted Park in 2017 and fined her. The Supreme Court said the book should be viewed as an academic argument, subject to minimal restrictions. Park also faces a separate civil suit filed by former sex slaves.
South Korea’s Constitutional Court ruled 5-to-4 to uphold a law banning same-sex relations within the armed forces, saying it could harm combat readiness. Members of the armed forces currently face up to two years in prison for being in same-sex relationships. The law has been referred to the court and upheld by it four times since 2002.
The Supreme Court ruled that a Buddhist statue currently in government custody must be returned to a Japanese temple, ending a decade of litigation over the statue’s ownership. South Korean thieves stole the 20-inch gilded bronze statue in 2012 from a Buddhist temple in Japan. They were caught in South Korea while trying to sell the statue, at which point a Korean temple claimed ownership.
The South Korean Ministry of Justice has drafted legislation that, if approved by the National Assembly, would restrict where high-risk sex-offenders can live after release from prison. Those targeted are persons who committed crimes against children and those who have committed three or more sexual crimes, been ordered to wear electronic monitoring devices, and sentenced to 10 years or more in prison for sexual offenses. According to the ministry, as of 2022, 325 persons would have fallen under the proposed law’s restrictions.
Taiwan
Chinese authorities are reportedly investigating Taiwan electronics manufacturer Foxconn, one of Apple’s largest suppliers. According to the state-owned Global Times, tax authorities recently audited Foxconn subsidiaries in Guangdong and Jiangsu provinces, and the natural resources ministry investigated the company’s use of land in Henan and Hubei provinces. Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for China's Taiwan Affairs Office, said that Taiwan companies should “play a positive role in promoting the peaceful development of cross-Straits relations.” Foxconn’s founder and former CEO, Terry Gou, resigned from the company’s board in September after announcing his candidacy to be president of Taiwan.
A Taiwan court has convicted a retired air force colonel of spying for Beijing and handing over confidential national security information, and sentenced him to 20 years in prison. The court said the colonel violated the National Security Act by “developing an organization” for China. It also convicted him of several counts of violating the Classified National Security Information Protection Act for giving China confidential national security information to Beijing.