April 26 – May 02
Highlights: Chinese market regulators order Meta to unwind its $2 billion-plus acquisition of agentic AI startup Manus despite Manus’ reincorporation in Singapore; Hong Kong presses criminal charges against two men accused of posting social media calls to boycott last year’s Legislative Council elections; Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi convenes an expert panel to review Japan's defense policies and spending levels; former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and his wife, Kim Keon Hee, are both given longer prison terms by an appellate court; a Taiwan court sentences a former TSMC engineer to ten years in prison for passing chip secrets to equipment supplier Tokyo Electron.
China
The National Development and Reform Commission ordered Meta to unwind its $2 billion-plus acquisition of Manus, a Chinese-founded agentic AI startup that had reincorporated in Singapore. The commission said it had jurisdiction over the acquisition based on the origin of Manus’ technology and team rather than its place of incorporation. Meta said it is preparing to comply. The order signals that offshore restructuring will not shield technology acquisitions from Chinese national security review, and may discourage foreign investment in Chinese tech startups.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) released for public comment draft regulations over the rare earth sector. The proposed rules would increase fines and even revoke the business licenses of companies that exceed their production quotas or illegally sell mined or processed rare earths. China dominates global mining and refining of rare earths and is increasingly flexing its dominance in conflicts with the United States and other countries.
The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress revised the Prison Law for the first time since 1994. Revisions include new provisions on prisoner rehabilitation, vocational training, mental health education, and, where necessary, psychological counseling, crisis intervention, and treatment. The revised law, effective November 1, 2026, also expands procuratorial supervision over sentence execution and standardizes commutation and parole procedures.
The State Administration for Market Regulation began a pilot program in Beijing and six provinces to petition courts for the compulsory liquidation of chronically unprofitable firms that have been kept alive through government subsidies and bank loans. A recent amendment to China's Company Law enabled the move, which is aimed at correcting the market distortions generated by the ongoing operation of companies that face no pressure to turn a profit.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) approved a Nasdaq listing for DSC Holdings, a Cayman Islands-incorporated Chinese software company. It was the agency's first approval of a US market IPO in four months and countered recent signals that authorities might require red-chip companies that use variable interest entity (VIE) structures to re-domicile before listing abroad.
The Cyberspace Administration of China ordered ByteDance’s video-editing apps Jianying and Maoxiang and AI video platform Jimeng AI to comply with the requirement to label all AI-generated content. The regulator said it summoned, warned, and penalized those responsible. The relevant rules took effect in September 2025.
The Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court released seven “typical cases” (典型案例) dealing with labor conflicts related to the introduction of artificial intelligence in the workplace. The official Xinhua News Agency said the cases may send a reassuring message to employees because they demonstrate the court protecting the rights of employees while also supporting AI development. In one case, the court said that a company could not simply downgrade or terminate an employee because AI could do his job more cheaply.
The US Supreme Court heard arguments in Cisco Systems’ appeal of a lower court ruling that allowed Falun Gong members to sue the technology company in a US court under the Alien Tort Statute. The plaintiffs argue that Cisco should be held liable for designing and selling surveillance technology that China used to track and persecute them for their spiritual practices. They say Cisco’s actions took place inside the United States, even though they suffered harms in China.
The US Federal Communications Commission advanced a proposal to bar Chinese laboratories from testing and certifying consumer electronic devices for the US market on national security grounds. Chinese labs currently certify roughly 75 percent of US consumer electronics. The commission also advanced a proposal to bar three Chinese state-owned telecommunications carriers —China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom—from running data centers in the United States and to prohibit US carriers from interconnecting with companies on a national security watch list.
The Irish Supreme Court confirmed that TikTok may continue transferring European user data to China pending its appeal of a May 2025 Irish Data Protection Commission order that fined the platform €530 million ($620 million) and required suspension of those transfers. The commission, which serves as TikTok's lead privacy regulator under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, found that TikTok failed to ensure that data remotely accessed by its China-based personnel received protection equivalent to that guaranteed within the EU.
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen. Charles Lieber, a leading researcher in brain-computer interfaces, has reemerged in the public eye as founding director of i-BRAIN, a Chinese state-funded brain-computer interface institute. Lieber paid a fine and spent six months under house arrest after his 2021 conviction. Both the US and Chinese militaries are interested using brain-computer interface technology to enhance soldiers' cognitive performance.
Hong Kong
The Independent Commission Against Corruption charged two men under the Elections (Corrupt and Illegal Conduct) Ordinance for posting social media calls to boycott or spoil ballots in Hong Kong's December 2025 Legislative Council elections. The elections were conducted under new rules that required all candidates to pass a government patriotism vetting process, effectively barring opposition figures from standing. At least one earlier defendant charged under the same ordinance for similar conduct has received a suspended prison sentence.
The Tobacco and Alcohol Control Office banned public possession of e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products, and herbal cigarettes in Hong Kong, where their import, manufacture, and sale have been prohibited since 2022. Persons carrying small quantities face a fixed penalty of HK$3,000 ($385), while those carrying larger amounts face fines up to HK$50,000 ($6,400) and six months in prison.
The District Court set the trial of political commentator Wong Kwok-ngon for October 9 on charges of sedition and disclosing the details of a national security police inquiry. Wong, a former Apple Daily writer who delivers commentary on his own YouTube channel using the name Wong On-yin, has been detained since his December 2025 arrest. He is accused of disclosing questions that the police had asked him, thereby tipping off others. Wong is the first person to be prosecuted under a 2025 provision criminalizing disclosure of national security police investigations.
Reporters Without Borders ranked Hong Kong 140th out of 180 countries and territories in its 2026 World Press Freedom Index, released ahead of World Press Freedom Day on May 3. Among other factors, the organization noted the prosecution and conviction of former Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai, who was sentenced in February to twenty years in prison for conspiring to collude with foreign forces and to publish seditious materials. In 2002, the first year the index was published, Hong Kong ranked 18th. Within Asia, Taiwan ranks highest this year at 28, while China comes in at 178.
Japan
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi inaugurated a fifteen-member expert panel to review Japan's defense policies as part of her drive to strengthen the country's military amid rising regional and global tensions. The panel is expected to consider possible emergency scenarios and discuss further increases in defense spending.
A Justice Ministry advisory panel proposed raising the ownership threshold for shareholder proposals after ruling-party lawmakers and business groups argued that a decade of corporate governance reforms had made it too easy for activist investors to pressure companies at annual meetings. The ministry will seek public comment before submitting a bill to parliament next year.
The Oita District Court dismissed a lawsuit by six disabled persons claiming that Kyushu Railway Co.’s operation of unstaffed railway status violated their freedom of movement and amounted to unconstitutional discrimination. When stations are unstaffed, travelers with disabilities must contact the railway in advance to make boarding arrangements. Presiding Judge Mina Tomita ruled that the railway’s arrangements were a reasonable response to Japan’s shrinking population and therefore not discriminatory.
A man acquitted of murdering a junior high school girl forty years ago filed a state compensation claim with Fukui District Court seeking 40 million yen ($276,000) for nearly nine years of wrongful detention. Shoshi Maekawa, now 60, was arrested in 1987, acquitted in 1990, but convicted in 1995 upon appeal by the prosecutors. He then served nearly five years before being acquitted in a 2025 retrial.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare revised the Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Act to restrict over-the-counter drug sales to buyers under age eighteen in response to a pandemic-era surge in young people deliberately taking large doses of common medicines to alter their mental state. The new rules cap purchases by minors at one small package per transaction and require pharmacists to verify buyers' ages and purchase histories.
Koreas
Former President Yoon Suk Yeol and his wife, Kim Keon Hee, both receive longer prison sentences after appeals trials at the Seoul High Court.
The court increased Yoon’s sentence on subsidiary charges related to his December 2024 martial law declaration to seven years, up from five at trial. The appellate court found grounds for expanding his liability—for example, finding that he violated the deliberation rights of nine Cabinet members rather than seven. Yoon is already serving a life sentence after being convicted separately of leading an insurrection.
Kim had been sentenced to twenty months in prison for receiving bribes, but the appeals court increased her sentence to four years after finding her guilty of a stock manipulation charge on which the lower court had acquitted her.
The Seoul High Court upheld a two-year prison sentence for Kweon Seong-dong, former floor leader of the opposition People Power Party, for accepting 100 million won ($67,800) from a Unification Church official in return for access to then-presidential candidate Yoon Suk Yeol. The conviction arose from a special counsel investigation into financial ties between the church and Yoon's political circle.
The Unification Ministry said the question of whether South Korea should address North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, warrants broad public debate. Unification Minister Chung Dong-young used the official name for the first time at an academic forum last month, triggering controversy over whether this amounted to recognizing the North as a separate state —something that South Korea's Constitution does not do.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare proposed removing the term “out-of-wedlock child” from administrative forms under the Child Welfare Act's enforcement rules, where the expression had persisted despite its removal from the law itself. A record high 5.8 percent share of births in South Korea occurred outside marriage in 2023, reflecting shifting public attitudes toward non-marital childbirth.
Migrant rights groups filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission of Korea arguing that the government is discriminating against foreign residents by excluding most of them from receiving government handouts to offset high fuel costs. The government began accepting applications for the relief program this week, and anticipates reaching 70 percent of the population.
President Lee Jae Myung ordered ministries to resolve migrant worker abuses swiftly and called for stern punishment of unlawful acts. Foreign worker advocacy groups demanded abolition of the employer-consent requirement for job changes under the Employment Permit System. Under that system, more than 300,000 E-9 nonprofessional visa holders must obtain employer approval to change workplaces and risk deportation if they leave without it. Advocates say this prevents workers from escaping abusive employers.
Taiwan
The Intellectual Property and Commercial Court sentenced former TSMC engineer Chen Li-ming to ten years in prison for soliciting two-nanometer process secrets from TSMC colleagues and passing them to equipment supplier Tokyo Electron Taiwan. The court also fined Tokyo Electron Taiwan NT$150 million ($4.65 million) and sentenced four co-defendants to terms of up to six years. It was reported to be the first case involving a corporate entity brought under the National Security Act for offenses involving national core key technologies.
President Lai Ching-te arrived in Eswatini for his second overseas trip on a chartered plane sent by his host. Lai had planned to visit a week earlier but Seychelles, Mauritius, and Madagascar revoked overflight permissions, reportedly under pressure from China. The plane he used formerly belonged to Taiwan's China Airlines but has been in service in Eswatini since 2018. The tiny African kingdom is one of eleven UN member states that maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) confirmed to Bloomberg that she has asked to meet with US President Donald Trump when she visits the US in June. Cheng, who traveled to Beijing in March and met with Chinese Communist Party General Secretary and President Xi Jinping, said she wanted to promote cross-Strait peace, which would be aided if Trump would express opposition to Taiwan independence.
The Taipei District Prosecutors' Office said the Taipei District Court wrongly excluded a NT$15 million ($472,830) bribe from consideration when sentencing former presidential candidate Ko Wen-je, and appealed his 17-year prison term. Prosecutors said Core Pacific Group founder Sheen Ching-jing's ten-year sentence also was too lenient for the same reason, and appealed it as well. Ko, founder of the small opposition Taiwan People's Party, was convicted in March of several corruption charges relating to a real estate development when he was Taipei mayor from 2018-2022.