May 17 – May 23
Highlights: China strengthens state control over mining, processing, and stockpiling of rare earths and casts doubt on White House assertions that China agreed to address concerns about rare earth shortages; Hong Kong's legislature converts its only authorized protest site into a parking lot; Japan considers expanding the role played by crime victims and bereaved families in criminal proceedings; the South Korean government issues a white paper that pivots the government’s North Korea policy from confrontation to peaceful coexistence; opposition parties in Taiwan’s legislature fail to obtain enough votes to impeach President Lai Ching-te; the reliability of the US defense umbrella is the subject of debate in Taiwan and Washington as US President Trump sends mixed signals about approving a planned $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan.
China
The State Council issued regulations to strengthen its control over the mining, processing, use and stockpiling of mineral resources, including rare earths. China has used its dominance in global rare earths supply chains as leverage in its rivalry with the United States. The regulations were promulgated to implement the Mineral Resources Law, which was revised in 2024. They take effect on June 15.
The Ministry of Commerce said China’s rare earth export controls are lawful and gave a different account of what the US and China agreed to regarding rare earths during the Xi-Trump summit on May 14-15. The White House said China agreed to address US concerns about rare earth shortages. The ministry said both sides agreed to study and resolve each other’s “reasonable and lawful” concerns.
The State Council issued a document calling on local governments to gradually begin providing basic public services to long-term residents regardless of their “hukou” or place of household registration. The Implementing Opinions on Providing Basic Public Services Based on Place of Usual Residence (关于推行常住地 提供基本公共服务的实施意见) sets out incremental measures toward providing access to education, housing, social security, healthcare, employment, and social assistance for non-registered residents. The goal is to strengthen the social safety net for internal migrants and lift household consumption as part of a larger effort to reduce the economy’s reliance on exports. However, mega-cities including Beijing and Shanghai have long resisted central pressure to make locally funded public benefits more inclusive.
Wingtech Technology, a Zhejiang-based semiconductor company, sued its own Dutch subsidiary Nexperia B.V. and five other entities in a Guangdong court, the latest move in a long-running battle for control over Nexperia. Wingtech bought Nexperia in 2018 but the Dutch government seized control of the company in late 2025 after the US threatened to sanction it due to its Chinese ownership. China responded by halting exports of Nexperia chips from China, triggering shortages among its automaker customers. The Dutch government then rolled back its controls but the subsidiary reportedly continues to operate independently of the parent. In its new lawsuit, Wingtech claims that its control over Nexperia remains restricted, causing economic losses. In early May, Wingtech’s auditors reported that they could not verify 57 percent of the company’s assets because they lack access to Nexperia's financial records.
Caixin published a detailed report about a joint crackdown begun in late 2025 by the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Public Security, and State Administration for Market Regulation on unlicensed consulting firms posing online as law firms and defrauding clients with false guarantees. It reported that Guangdong and Fujian provinces have since banned non-lawyer control of law firms. Hubei regulators revoked Hubei Zhinan Law Firm's license in April 2026 after a consulting affiliate used its accounts to guarantee fictitious outcomes.
Germany's Office of the Federal Public Prosecutor General arrested a married German-Chinese couple on suspicion of recruiting university researchers in aerospace, computer science, and AI for a Chinese intelligence agency. Prosecutors allege that the couple invited some scientists in Germany to give paid lectures in China to what appeared to be civilian audiences but in reality included representatives of state-owned defense companies.
Hong Kong
The Legislative Council Secretariat confirmed that the Designated Demonstration Area—legislature's only authorized protest site, which has been closed since the 2019 pro-democracy protests—now serves as a parking site. The secretariat said the conversion accommodates the 2022 expansion of LegCo from seventy to ninety members.
A former student activist asked the Court of Final Appeal to review the constitutionality of Hong Kong’s criminalization of calls to boycott elections or cast blank votes. Jacky So Tsun-fung was given a two-month suspended prison term in 2022 for sharing a social media post that urged voters to cast blank ballots during the 2021 LegCo election. At least fourteen other persons have been convicted under the same law, Section 27A of the Elections (Corrupt and Illegal Conduct) Ordinance. Government lawyers argued that the provision is not subject to constitutional review because it implements a decision of China’s National People's Congress.
A magistrate handed a 67-year-old man a suspended two-month jail term for sharing a social media post calling for a boycott of the 2025 Legislative Council elections. Boycotts calls are generally objecting to election rule changes that screen candidates for political loyalty, effectively blocking opposition voices from the legislature.
The organizers of Pink Dot HK, Hong Kong's largest LGBTQ carnival, cancelled the event for the second consecutive year after authorities did not approve the necessary licenses and venue operator Link REIT declined to rent the planned space. Large-scale LGBTQ events have become difficult to hold in the city since Beijing imposed the National Security Law in 2020, although officials have not acknowledged targeting LGBTQ groups.
The High Court ordered the seizure of HK$674,860 (US$87,000) from the bank accounts of three persons in connection with a failed 2019 plot to set off bombs along the route of a protest march, targeting police. The court said the funds could be treated as “terrorist property” under the United Nations (Anti-Terrorism Measures) Ordinance because they were intended to finance the scheme. Two of the three persons, Wong Chun-keung and Ng Chi-hung, previously pleaded guilty and were sentenced to prison terms; a jury acquitted the third, Lau Pui-ying. The High Court nonetheless said evidence showed Lau was a “terrorist associate” who helped crowdfund the plot.
Japan
The Justice Ministry is considering expanding the role played by crime victims and bereaved families in criminal proceedings. Since 2007, victims of certain categories of crimes or their attorneys have been allowed to question defendants in court or state their views on sentencing. The ministry is considering a proposal to allow victims to participate in pretrial hearings and expand the types of crimes covered by the scheme. The proposal will be reviewed to the ministry’s Legislative Council and would ultimately require amending the Criminal Procedure Code.
The Supreme Court completed Japan's civil court digitalization, mandating online filing by lawyers and electronic records for new cases. The reform, phased in since 2018, brings the system in line with peer jurisdictions that digitalized roughly two decades earlier.
The Ministry of Education found that a Kyoto high school field trip to observe the construction site of a contested US military base in Okinawa was illegal. On March 16, the school organized a peace studies tour with eighteen students using two boats owned by an anti-military base protest group. The boats capsized, and two persons died. The ministry said the trip not only violated safety protocols but violated the Basic Law on Education's political neutrality clause.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party proposed legally mandating use of My Number Card, a national ID that also doubles as a health insurance card and can be linked to a bank account for receiving public payments. Non-users would not be penalized, however.
Trial began in a lawsuit filed by a death row inmate for psychological harm caused by 24/7 surveillance. Hiroko Kazama said she is always subject to observation through a ceiling-mounted camera, even when using the bathroom, and that male guards may watch her. She is seeking ¥5.5 million ($34,600) in damages. Kazama was convicted in 1993 together with her partner, a high-profile dog breeder, of at least four murders. She is pursuing a retrial and maintains her innocence.
The liquidator of the Unification Church began accepting claims from persons who made large donations to the group under duress. Claims will be accepted until May 20, 2027, from followers and former followers of the group, their family members, and heirs of deceased followers. In March, the Tokyo High Court ordered the Japanese unit of the Unification Church—formally called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification—to be dissolved after finding it defrauded about 1,500 people of a total of about US$130 million since the 1980s by pressuring them to make donations in return for forgiveness of sins.
The Sports Agency and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications launched a specialist panel on public access to major sporting events after no terrestrial broadcaster aired the March World Baseball Classic. Officials from professional baseball, Olympic, and football bodies pointed to rising rights fees and foreign streaming platforms as the core threat to free-to-air access.
The Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting concluded in Hiroshima without granting the emperor penguin specially protected species status. China and Russia denied the consensus needed for the designation, which most other states backed following the International Union for Conservation of Nature's April reclassification of the bird as endangered. The meeting issued only a non-binding pledge to prioritize the species' protection and deferred similarly unresolved tourism-regulation talks to the 2027 session in South Korea.
Koreas
The Ministry of Unification published an annual white paper that pivots the government’s North Korea policy from confrontation to peaceful coexistence and accepts that the two Koreas “effectively exist as two states.” Critics said the framing comes close to recognizing North Korea as a sovereign state in violation of Article 3 of the Constitution, which claims the entire Korean Peninsula as Republic of Korea territory. The ministry said its white paper acknowledges only de facto, not legal, statehood.
The Seoul Central District Court sentenced former National Intelligence Service Director Cho Tae-yong to eighteen months in prison for perjury in connection with former President Yoon Suk Yeol's December 2024 martial law declaration. The special counsel had sought seven years, but the court acquitted Cho of failing to report an alleged presidential order to arrest lawmakers.
The Suwon District Court partially granted Samsung Electronics an injunction against its largest labor union, ordering normal staffing at safety and facility-protection operations during a planned eighteen-day strike over performance bonuses. The labor minister then brokered a tentative deal abolishing the bonus cap and tying pay to operating profit, and the union suspended the strike pending a ratification vote.
A civic group filed a complaint with police against Shinsegae Group Chairman Chung Yong-jin and Son Jung-hyun, former head of Starbucks Korea, alleging defamation in connection with a Starbucks marketing promotion. Shinsegae affiliate E-Mart operates Starbucks Korea. On the May 18 anniversary of the 1980 military suppression of pro-democracy protesters in Gwangju, Starbucks offered a “Tank Day” promotion with discounts for a series of tank tumblers, which it advertised as holding a large volume of coffee. It halted the promotion within hours and fired the CEO. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said it would investigate. President Lee Jae Myung joined in criticizing the promotion.
The Supreme Court unanimously held that non-doctors may practice tattooing, reversing a 1992 decision that restricted tattooing to licensed physicians. The full bench reasoned that tattooing requires aesthetic rather than medical skill and that the Medical Service Act must be read to protect tattoo artists' constitutional rights to occupational freedom and expression.
The Seoul Jongno Police Station referred a criminal defamation case against ten right-wing activists to prosecutors for publicly claiming that Korean women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II voluntarily worked as prostitutes. Police separately arrested Kim Byung-heon, who leads a group seeking to repeal South Korea's law honoring the victims, for sixty-nine false online posts.
The Supreme Court ruled that royalties paid by Yuhan Corp. to US pharmaceutical company Genosco for technical know-how may be subject to South Korean corporate tax. The decision overturned a Seoul High Court decision that the payments were exempt as “capital assets” under the 1976 Korea-US tax treaty.
Taiwan
Opposition parties in the Legislative Yuan failed to obtain enough votes to impeach President Lai Ching-te (賴清德). The Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) and Taiwan People's Party (TPP) joined in proposing impeachment in December 2025 after Lai refused to promulgate a bill approved by the legislature raising local governments' share of tax revenue. When the legislature voted on May 19, the result was 56-50 in favor, short of the 76 votes (two-thirds majority) needed to send the matter to the Constitutional Court. Ever since the 2024 elections gave the presidency to the Democratic Progressive Party and the legislature to the KMT and TPP, the two branches have been at loggerheads.
The reliability of the US defense umbrella was debated in Taiwan and Washington as US President Donald Trump sent mixed signals about whether he will sign off on a $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan that was approved by Congress in January. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s main message to Trump during their May 14-15 Beijing summit was that mishandling relations with Taiwan could result in a US-China conflict.
In an interview in Beijing on May 15, Trump said “nothing's changed” toward Taiwan, but added: “I’m not looking to have somebody go independent. And, you know, we're supposed to travel 9,500 miles to fight a war. I'm not looking for that. I want them to cool down. I want China to cool down.” Asked if he would approve the weapons sale, Trump said: “I’m holding that in abeyance and it depends on China. It’s a very good negotiating chip for us, frankly. It’s a lot of weapons.”
After leaving Beijing, Trump said twice that he plans to speak with Taiwan President Lai Ching-te before deciding.
Acting US Navy Secretary Hung Cao told a US Senate hearing that the US is pausing the arms sale to Taiwan to “make sure we have the weapons we need” for the war with Iran.
Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper quoted unidentified Japanese government sources as saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping urged US President Donald Trump not to support Japanese Prime Ministry Sanae Takaichi or Taiwan President Lai, calling them threats to regional peace. The Financial Times and Kyodo News Service published similar reports, which none of the governments involved immediately confirmed or denied.
The Keelung District Court ordered three Taiwanese men detained incommunicado on suspicion of forging export declarations to smuggle Supermicro AI servers containing advanced Nvidia chips to Hong Kong and possibly onward to China. The United States has restricted exports of such chips to China since 2022.
The Supreme Court finalized a seven-year prison sentence for former Air Force officer Hsu Chan-cheng under the National Security Act and Anti-Corruption Act for selling Hsiung Feng III anti-ship missile and air defense documents to Chinese intelligence. Hsu's handler, a retired Air Force major recruited by Beijing, paid him NT$226,000 ($7,175) over four years in a recurring Chinese pattern of using retired officers to penetrate Taiwan's military.
The president of the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization, declined to put on the agenda a proposal by Taiwan's allies to allow Taiwan to join the meeting as an observer. The assembly met in Geneva over the past week. China has blocked Taiwan’s participation at the World Health Assembly since Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party won the presidency in 2016.