July 6 - July 12
China
Chinese lawyers and pro-democracy activists marked the tenth anniversary of what has become known as the 709 crackdown. Beginning on July 9, 2015, police across the country detained nearly 300 lawyers, paralegals, and other associates who had worked on politically sensitive cases, including defending members of the Falungong community and dissidents. Eventually nine were tried and convicted of subversion, and many were disbarred. Regulations were issued to more tightly regulate lawyers’ acceptance of cases and prevent them from sharing case information with the public. A roundup of commemorations and reflections can be found here.
The Ministry of State Security disclosed three cases of civil servants caught leaking classified documents to overseas actors, either out of carelessness, for money, or after being caught in a “honey trap” while traveling abroad. The ministry did not identify the countries involved but warned “all citizens, especially public servants,” to remain vigilant.
The Foreign Ministry denied that the government asks Chinese companies or individuals to collect and store users’ personal data in violation of law. It made the statement after the Irish regulatory body, the Data Protection Commission, opened a new investigation into the Chinese-owned social media giant TikTok. The commission fined TikTok 530 million euros (US$620 million) in May 2025 for sending personal data to China. TikTok said that only a minimal amount of data had been stored on Chinese servers and that it proactively deleted the data upon discovering it.
The Ministry of Commerce placed eight entities from Taiwan on an export control list, accusing them of collaboration with separatist forces. As of July 9, exports of dual-use items to the eight entities are prohibited. The eight entities are Aerospace Industrial Development Corp, GEOSAT Aerospace & Technology Inc, National Chung-Shan Institute of Science & Technology, JC Technology Inc, CSBC Corporation, Taiwan, Jong Shyn Shipbuilding Co Ltd, Lungteh Shipbuilding Co Ltd and Gong Wei Co Ltd. In June, Taiwan put two Chinese tech giants, Huawei and the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., on its own export control list.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have agreed to submit a pact upgrading their free trade areas to their leaders for approval in October. China and ASEAN also agreed on a five-year action plan that specifies collaboration in more than 40 fields in the coming years, and to strive to complete consultations next year on a code of conduct in the South China Sea. China has encouraged fellow targets of the US tariff war to draw closer to China and move away from the US.
The US Department of Agriculture issued a seven-point national security plan that included a call to restrict purchases of US farmland by Chinese investors and other foreign nationals. The department said it would enhance public disclosures of foreign ownership of farmland, enact steeper penalties for false filings, and work with Congress and states to ban purchases from foreign adversaries. China’s Foreign Ministry criticized the plan as a violation of market principles and international trade rules.
Republican leaders of the US House of Representatives’ Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party urged seven American universities to cut ties with an official Chinese scholarship program, the China Scholarship Council, which funds hundreds of Chinese graduate students to study in the US every year. The state-run Global Times newspaper responded that the effort reflected US “desperation to stifle China's development through ‘academic decoupling.’”
Hong Kong
National security police arrested four males, ages 15 to 47, on charges of conspiring to subvert state power through participation in a pro-independence group called the Hong Kong Democratic Independence Union. Police said the group was established in Taiwan in November and advocates for Hong Kong’s independence. Ties to Taiwan may be limited, one Taiwan publication wrote.
A waiter was charged with inciting subversion under the National Security Law for posts made on social media platforms X and Instagram between June 2024 and April 2025. Chan Ho-hin, 22, had already been charged with sedition for those posts under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance.
The government submitted a proposal to the Legislative Council to criminalize using a mobile phone SIM card registered in another person’s name or providing information to someone else to use when registering a SIM card. Possession of 10 or more SIM cards registered with another person’s information will be presumed to have been done with intent to commit or facilitate a crime. Hong Kong began implementing a mainland-style real-name registration system for SIM cards in 2022, purportedly to reduce fraud.
Japan
A proposal to allow married couples to keep their separate surnames is an issue in the July 20 election for the upper house of Japan’s parliament, the House of Councillors. Bills related to the reform were deliberated by the Lower House's Judicial Affairs Committee in May this year for the first time in 28 years, but the panel failed to hold a vote. Legislation revising the Civil Code to allow the change is set to be discussed at an extraordinary parliamentary session this autumn.
A rising tide of support for minor political parties with a populist message may deliver a serious blow to the Liberal Democratic Party's 70-year dominance in the House of Councillors election. The Sanseito party, in particular, is eating into the LDP's conservative base, making claims under its “Japanese First” banner about the need to protect national identity.
The government said China has completed domestic quarantine procedures that will allow it to resume importing beef from Japan. China cut off imports following an outbreak of mad cow disease in Japan in 2001. The long-delayed move comes a few weeks after China lifted its ban on Japanese seafood imports. Both actions reflect China’s desire to improve relations with Japan in the face of rising tensions with the US.
The Financial Times reported that the US Defense Department is pressing Japan and Australia to make clear what role they would play if the US and China went to war over Taiwan. The newspaper said that Elbridge Colby, US under-secretary of defense for policy, has been pushing the issue in meetings with Japanese and Australian defense officials in recent months, according to five people familiar with the discussions.
Koreas
Former President Yoon Suk Yeol was taken into custody again after the Seoul Central District Court issued an arrest warrant based on five new criminal charges, including obstructing official duties, abuse of power and falsifying and destroying documents in connection with his declaration of martial law on Dec. 3, 2024. Yoon is already being tried on a charge of insurrection stemming from the martial law declaration, but had not been detained since March 7.
The Marine Corps said it will reinstate a former Marine investigator who led a probe into the 2023 death of a young conscript. Former Col. Park Jung-hun was accused of insubordination and dismissed after leading an internal probe into the death of a corporal who drowned during a search for missing flood victims in July 2023. A court found Park innocent, and now a special prosecutor has reopened the case of the drowned corporal.
Taiwan
President Lai Ching-te’s nominee to lead the Judicial Yuan and serve as a Constitutional Court judge appeared in the Legislative Yuan to answer questions about his stance on challenges facing the judiciary. Tsai Chiu-ming (蔡秋明), a career prosecutor, said his top priority would be to address the shortage of judges and resulting overwork. Tsai said he would push to increase the number of judges and support staff, while also decriminalizing some minor offenses and promoting out-of-court dispute resolution mechanisms to reduce the number of cases. He said he does not support abolishing the death penalty - a hot-button issue.
The Legislative Yuan approved a NT$545 billion (about US$18.6 billion) special budget package to counter the effects of US tariffs. The special budget includes a universal NT$10,000 (US$342) cash handout billed as a tax rebate that was inserted by the Nationalist Party (KMT). It also includes NT$93 billion for economic resilience, NT$150 billion for whole-of-society defense resilience and NT$167 billion for social support. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) accused the KMT of using the cash handout to win popular favor as 26 of its lawmakers face recall elections in coming weeks.
The Keelung District Prosecutors' Office indicted seven people for allegedly forging signatures on recall petitions targeting city councilors from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The seven include Nationalist Party (KMT) Keelung branch Chairman Wu Kuo-sheng (吳國勝), who is accused of ordering local KMT officials to forge 1,063 petition signatures. Prosecutors said that eight other persons confessed and face suspended sentences and fines. KMT officials in other districts also have been accused of signature fraud as the KMT and DPP attempt to recall each other’s legislators in a struggle for control of the narrowly divided Legislative Yuan.