May 19-25
China
The Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Commerce, and National Immigration Administration announced they are taking measures to open up all of China’s hotels to foreign guests, ending a longstanding system in which hotels needed special approval to house foreigners. It was not immediately clear when the change would be effective. The announcement was described as a response to online criticisms from foreign travelers.
The Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, the State Commission Office of Public Sectors Reform, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) jointly issued regulations for government and Communist Party agencies that operate websites and other online applications (互联网政务应用安全管理规定). The document sets out rules for domain names, data protection, and real-time security monitoring. The regulation takes effect on July 1, 2024.
TikTok said it has taken down thousands of accounts that belonged to covert influence operations in the first four months of this year, including the second-largest such network detected from China. The Chinese-owned social media company said that in February it removed 16 China-based accounts that promoted the policies of the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese culture; the network had 110,000 accounts following it. In the second quarter of 2023, the company took down a different Chinese information operation that had 141,000 followers.
The Ministry of Commerce announced sanctions against three US defense companies for selling arms to Taiwan, placing the companies on its “unreliable entities list.” China’s State Council Information Office said the sanctioned companies are General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, General Dynamics Land Systems, and Boeing Defense, Space & Security. China established the unreliable entities list in 2020.
The Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said it is investigating the minister of agriculture and rural affairs, Tang Renjian, for “serious violations of discipline and law.” Tang, who took the post in 2020, is the third government minister to fall within the past twelve months, following the ministers of defense and foreign affairs.
The Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the MPS, and the China Securities Regulatory Commission jointly issued an opinion on handling criminal cases related to securities and financial futures (关于办理证券期货违法犯罪案件工作若干问题的意见). The opinion is intended to enhance coordination among the various entities when investigating financial fraud, misappropriation of assets of listed companies, insider trading, market manipulation, and other crimes involving securities. It calls for zero tolerance and strict punishment. The document took immediate effect.
The State Administration for Market Regulation, the Ministry of Commerce, and the National Cultural Heritage Administration jointly issued a guiding opinion on regulating online auctions (关于促进网络拍卖规范健康发展的指导意见). Officials said that annual turnover in the online auction market exceeded one trillion RMB in 2023.
Hong Kong
The government introduced legislation that would increase government control over the board that licenses social workers, declaring the move necessary to protect national security. The Social Workers Registration Board is currently dominated by social workers who are elected by their peers. The government expressed concern that persons convicted of national security offenses might be licensed as social workers.
The Environmental Protection Department conditionally approved an environmental impact assessment report for a planned technological hub near the border with mainland China. The conditions included preserving space for a bird-flight corridor and pausing the destruction of local fish ponds until after construction of a wetland conservation park. Green groups who oppose the development said the report violates statutory requirements.
The Education Bureau urged four schools, including two institutions for special needs students, to bolster their national security education curricula. At one school, the bureau reported, upper-class students sang the national anthem “weakly” during the flag-raising ceremony. The bureau ordered a school for children with severe intellectual disabilities to fully implement national security education as soon as possible.
Police said they arrested 100 suspects linked to scams that caused total losses of 180 million Hong Kong dollars ($23.6 million) to 295 victims. The alleged crimes included investment, employment, online dating, and e-commerce frauds. Most of those arrested were accused of providing their bank accounts to fraud syndicates to collect and launder scammed money.
Japan
The Tokyo District Court rejected a South Asian woman’s lawsuit against the city of Tokyo for alleged racial discrimination by the police. The woman said she and her 3-year-old daughter were held for hours at a police station and that police took the little girl apart for questioning over whether she had kicked another child. In another high-profile case, three foreign-born residents of Japan sued both the national and Tokyo governments over alleged racial profiling by police. That case is still pending.
The House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill that will require schools, nurseries, orphanages, and other institutions to check whether persons holding or seeking jobs that involve contact with children have sex crime records.
Prosecutors again sought the death sentence in the retrial of 88-year-old Iwao Hakamada, who spent 46 years on death row before a court ordered a retrial due to significant questions raised about the evidence used to convict him. Hakamada was convicted in 1968 of murdering his boss and the boss’ family and setting their home on fire. The Shizuoka District Court began the retrial in October 2023 and heard closing arguments on May 22.
As Japan marks the 15th anniversary of its introduction of a lay judges system, Supreme Court documents show that the use of lay judges is in decline. The lay judge system, which differs from a jury system, allows ordinary citizens to sit alongside professional judges in some criminal trials and participate in determining guilt and sentences. The number of lay judges exceeded 10,000 a year in the system's first few years, but had fallen to 6,324 in 2023. The increasing length of trials may be a factor.
Koreas
South Korea’s Constitutional Court held its final hearing in four landmark cases (now merged) in which more than 200 plaintiffs accuse the government of harming them by failing to take action on climate change. An initial hearing was held in April. The cases are the first of their kind in East Asia, although similar claims have been filed in other regions. One of the cases, Woodpecker v South Korea, is named for a plaintiff who was an unborn baby when the lawsuit was filed in 2022. The decision is expected later this year.
The South Korean media regulator, the Communications Standards Commission, said it was banning access to a North Korean music video that glorifies its leader Kim Jong Un. The video has gone viral on TikTok and other social media platforms around the world. Under South Korea’s National Security Act, regulators may restrict access to North Korean websites and media to limit public exposure to political propaganda.
The Ministry of Employment and Labor said more than a quarter of the fish farms it inspected between March 25 and April 30 were found to have mistreated foreign workers. Violations included failing to provide adequate worker accommodations, failing to pay workers properly, and visa violations. South Korea is increasingly dependent on foreign workers with temporary visa status, who are on average nearly three times more likely to die in work-related accidents than local workers.
Taiwan
Lawmakers from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), whose combined seats in the legislature outnumber those of President Lai Ching-te’s (賴清德)’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), pushed forward controversial legislation that would require government officials to appear before the legislature to answer questions and face possible fines for “contempt of legislature” offenses. A set of amendments to the Law Governing the Legislature's Power and the Criminal Code that would authorize the legislature to investigate officials and private entities passed the second of three required readings. Meanwhile, an estimated 100,000 demonstrators gathered outside the legislature and called for the bills to be withdrawn.
The Constitutional Court ruled that insulting public officials is punishable under the Constitution, while defaming a public office is not. The question was raised by Yang Hui-ju (楊蕙如), who was convicted of the crime in 2022. Yang allegedly paid people to post criticism online of the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office’s branch in Osaka, Japan, for its its handling of evacuations of Taiwanese from Japan following a 2018 typhoon. The director-general of the office committed suicide after the criticism began.