March 01 - March 07
China
The National People's Congress (NPC) is holding its annual session in Beijing from March 4 to 12. Top agenda items include approving China's 15th Five-Year Plan and setting the government's legislative and economic agenda for 2026 through 2030.
The NPC is set to approve a Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress that elevates Mandarin over minority languages in regions including Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia, and would require parents and guardians to educate minors to love the Communist Party.
Premier Li Qiang set a growth target of 4.5% to 5% for 2026, down from the previous 5% goal, while announcing 7% increases each in the defense budget and research and development spending.
The 15th Five-Year Plan designates technological dominance as a core national security goal, mentioning AI more than fifty times, and targets raising core digital economy industries to 12.5% of GDP by 2030.
For the first time in a five-year plan, Beijing identified rare earths as a strategic competitive advantage and pledged to strengthen its export control system, which has already caused critical mineral shortages overseas.
The plan sets a 17% carbon intensity reduction target and a 25% non-fossil energy share by 2030, but drops previous language about phasing down coal consumption, leaving open the possibility that usage may plateau rather than decline.
Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign removed nine People's Liberation Army officers from their NPC delegate status last week and three from their Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference delegate status this week.
The Supreme People's Procuratorate released a set of representative cases on personal data crimes, including the prosecution of a suspect surnamed Lin who stole and sold more than 600 million citizen records through encrypted platforms between 2023 and 2025. Beijing prosecutors charged Lin and four others on counts of infringing on citizens' personal information and illegal use of information networks in October 2025.
The Supreme People's Procuratorate released a set of guiding cases for public interest litigation, establishing replicable standards on case-filing requirements, multi-party liability, and coordination between procuratorial and administrative authorities. The release follows the National People's Congress Standing Committee's first review of a draft law on procuratorial public interest litigation in October 2025, with the SPP stating that the cases are intended to inform the ongoing legislative drafting process.
Hong Kong
Jimmy Lai, founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily, will not appeal his national security conviction or 20-year prison sentence, his lawyer confirmed without giving a reason. A Hong Kong court convicted Lai in December on two counts of conspiring to collude with foreign forces and one count of conspiring to publish seditious publications, and sentenced him on February 9 to twenty years — the longest term imposed under the National Security Law.
The Hong Kong Arts Centre reopened its Incubator for Film and Visual Media in Asia (ifva) Awards after a seventeen-month hiatus, now requiring all entrants to certify that their submissions comply with national security legislation. The Arts Centre will submit all competing films to the government's film censorship office for approval before screening, but entries that fail review remain eligible for awards.
A Hong Kong court sentenced retired translator Lam Chung-ming, 68, to eight months in prison for sedition after he published 130 Facebook posts criticizing police and the judiciary and urging a boycott of the 2025 legislative elections. The court found the posts violated the city’s Safeguarding National Security Ordinance. It rejected his lawyer’s argument that the posts received little attention because Lam’s account reached only about a dozen friends.
A Hong Kong court gave a suspended two-month prison term to a woman who reposted an overseas activist’s call on Facebook to boycott the December 7, 2025 legislative election. Bonney Ma, 61, pleaded guilty to the charge of inciting others not to vote. Two other persons are also being prosecuted by the Independent Commission Against Corruption for the same action.
Japan
The Tokyo High Court upheld a lower court’s order to disband the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification - commonly known as the Unification Church - as a religious corporation in Japan. The court found that the church systematically coerced over 1,500 members into donating approximately 20.4 billion yen (about US$128.6 million) by exploiting their fears about spiritual well-being, which the court ruled was not legitimate religious activity. The ruling strips the church of its tax-exempt status and triggers asset liquidation. The church may still appeal to the Supreme Court.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced plans to establish an expert panel as early as this summer to discuss enacting an anti-espionage law and expanding Japan's intelligence capabilities, including the possible creation of a foreign intelligence service.
Koreas
The Seoul Central District Court sentenced a hospital director and a surgeon to six and four years in prison, respectively, after finding both guilty of murder for delivering a 36-week fetus by cesarean section and placing the newborn in a freezer to die. The case exposed South Korea's six-year legislative vacuum: although the Constitutional Court decriminalized abortion in 2019, the National Assembly has not enacted a regulatory framework, leaving providers operating without legal guidance and patients without access to safe, insured services.
South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission relaunched under a law passed in January. It inherited more than 2,100 unresolved complaints from its predecessor, including 311 cases filed by overseas adoptees. The commission will investigate the government's decades-long foreign adoption program, which sent an estimated 200,000 children abroad from the 1950s through the early 2000s and has been linked to systematic fraud including falsified records and identity substitutions.
A coalition of twenty-two women's, labor, and human rights groups plans to stage a nationwide strike in South Korea on International Women’s Day on March 8. They are targeting the country's 29-percent gender pay gap, the largest among OECD member states for the twenty-ninth consecutive year. The coalition wants the National Assembly to enact a comprehensive anti-discrimination law and expand labor protections for domestic workers, people with disabilities, and migrants.
The Ministry of Justice announced the “2030 Immigration Policy Future Strategy,” a package of immigration reforms designed to expand access for skilled foreign workers. South Korea is grappling with falling birth rates and an aging workforce. The plan broadens existing high-skilled visa eligibility, introduces new visa categories, and consolidates thirty-nine visa subcategories into three skill-based tiers.
The Seoul Western District Prosecutors' Office indicted a Brazilian national in her 30s on charges of stalking and trespassing after she visited the home of Jungkook, a member of South Korean pop group BTS, approximately twenty times in a single month despite a police restraining order. Authorities detained her after she allegedly continued the conduct following an initial arrest.
Taiwan
Premier Cho Jung-tai refused to countersign three opposition-backed legislative amendments addressing ill-gotten party assets, satellite broadcast licensing, and legislative aides' salaries. Cho said they were constitutionally defective. This is the third time he has refused to sign bills passed by the Legislative Yuan since December 2025, thereby (according to the Cabinet he leads) preventing them from taking effect. No other premier in the history of the Republic of China has taken such a step and its constitutionality is in question.
The Constitutional Court held a closed-door briefing attended by all eight sitting justices to review whether prosecutors appropriately applied a pre-2005 twenty-year statute of limitations to dismiss a child sexual abuse case. The victim filed suit in 2021 for abuse she suffered between 1996 and 1999 - after the old statute of limitations expired but within the current thirty-year deadline.
The full attendance was notable because three justices have been refusing to participate in any proceedings since December 2024, when the Legislative Yuan amended the court’s quorum requirements in a way that effectively stopped it from hearing new cases. Five of the eight justices resumed hearing cases in December 2025, declaring the amendment unconstitutional, but three disagreed.
President Lai Ching-te announced a four-year, NT$24 billion (US$756.2 million) plan to boost domestic production of critical medicines and reduce reliance on imported drugs. Lai did not say how the plan would be funded. The government's 2026 general budget has yet to clear the opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan.
The Taipei District Prosecutors Office indicted sixty-two people linked to the Prince Group, including founder Chen Zhi, on charges of laundering approximately NT$10.8 billion (US$339 million) through Taiwanese shell companies. The funds were used to purchase properties and luxury vehicles. Authorities have seized more than NT$5.5 billion (about US$172.8 million) in assets in Taiwan.
Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han announced nine new or expanded subsidy measures to encourage employers to provide childcare benefits to workers with children ages twelve or under, effective May 1. The expanded scheme raises reimbursement rates for employer-paid childcare allowances, drops the prior requirement that children be enrolled in formal institutions to qualify, and extends equal coverage to foreign nationals and migrant workers.