May 24 – May 30
Highlights: China’s government begins issuing unique ID numbers to humanoid robots so they can be tracked from production to recycling; Hong Kong announces plans to create a specialized International Commercial Court to hear high-value cross-border disputes; Japan's Diet creates two high-level bodies to consolidate and analyze national security information; South Korean police arrest a YouTuber for allegedly creating fake audio and text evidence that actor Kim Soo-hyun dated a minor; Taiwan opposition leader Cheng Li-wun prepares to head to the United States for talks with American politicians about sustainable peace across the Taiwan Strait; Taiwan President Lai Ching-te proposes a US$12 billion program to encourage births.
China
A Henan court sentenced the former abbot of the storied Shaolin Temple to twenty-four years in prison after he pleaded guilty to embezzlement and both paying and accepting bribes. Before his fall, Shi Yongxin was dubbed China's “CEO monk” for turning the monastery into a lucrative commercial brand with ventures in publishing, traditional Chinese medicine, tourist development, and real estate, as well as kung fu schools. State media said the sums totaled about 300 million yuan (US$44 million).
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released its 2026 work plan for rolling out new technical standards for the domestic auto industry with respect to vehicle chips, AI, batteries, and other new technologies. The ministry also said it will deepen participation in setting global standards. China is the world’s leading manufacturer of both electric vehicles and autos generally.
The ministry also launched a system to assign every humanoid robot made in China a unique ID number for use from production to recycling. The ministry said its goal is to manage safety risks. China has more than 100 humanoid manufacturers, and more than 28,000 robots across 200 models were already been assigned a digital ID before the public announcement of the Humanoid Full Lifecycle Management Service Platform.
The European Commission fined the Chinese online marketplace Temu €200 million (US$232 million) for breaching the Digital Services Act, the European Union's law requiring large platforms to police illegal goods, after tests found unsafe chargers and baby toys for sale. The penalty, the second ever under the act, signals growing European pressure on low-cost Chinese e-commerce.
The European Commission called the European Union's trade relationship with China unsustainable and vowed a tougher response to surging Chinese imports. Commissioners are weighing proposals, due in the third quarter, to force supply-chain diversification or curb China's access to EU markets in chemicals, metals, and clean energy.
Hong Kong
The government announced it will create a specialized International Commercial Court within the High Court to hear high-value cross-border disputes, in yet another step toward fulfilling Beijing’s plan to make the city a global hub for legal services. The new tribunal will be staffed by judges from Hong Kong and other common law jurisdictions. The proposed structure mimics China’s creation in 2018 of an International Commercial Court within the Supreme People’s Court. China has subsequently built out a network of sixteen local “international commercial tribunals” that are based within intermediate-level courts in major mainland cities.
The International Organization for Mediation (IOMed), established in Hong Kong in 2025 as part of the same legal services development plan, has resolved its inaugural case, a maritime charter dispute between Chinese and Singaporean parties. The intergovernmental mediation body has nineteen members, with additional countries in the process of joining. IOMed’s mandate includes resolving state-to-state, investor-state, and international commercial disputes.
The former chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, Ronson Chan, began serving a five-day prison sentence after it was upheld by the High Court. Chan was convicted of obstructing police by refusing to show his ID to a plainclothes officer while reporting in 2022. The court rejected Chan’s argument that the officer's demand was unlawful.
The Hong Kong Police Force is rapidly expanding its rollout of drone patrols and surveillance cameras, according to a report by the Hong Kong Free Press. The police force has already purchased about 700 drones and plans to purchase fifty-six more in 2026-27. Police plan to install about 60,000 street cameras by 2028 and may begin giving them facial recognition capacity this year.
Following lengthy debate, the Transport and Logistics Bureau formally proposed capping ride-hailing permits at 10,000 vehicles as it moves to implement a licensing regime for the sector. Uber has already been operating for over a decade in the city. The bureau said the cap protects road capacity and service standards, though it falls well below the 30,000 permits Uber had sought for its existing drivers.
Japan
The Diet enacted a law creating a National Intelligence Council and National Intelligence Bureau to facilitate consolidating and analyzing intelligence from multiple ministries, including information related to national security. The council will be chaired by the prime minister and include other Cabinet members such as the ministers of foreign affairs and defense. The bureau will be staffed by bureaucrats and will handle day-to-day operations on behalf of the council. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called the legislation the first step toward her goal of creating a foreign intelligence agency modeled on the US Central Intelligence Agency.
The Justice Ministry faced pushback from legislators debating proposed revisions to the criminal procedure law in order to make it easier to reopen previously finalized convictions where evidence indicates possible error. The revisions submitted by the the Justice Ministry would not require prosecutors who oppose reopening a conviction to submit their evidence unless a court decides that disclosure is appropriate. Some legislators in the lower house’s Judicial Affairs Committee argued that disclosure should be the default. While many legislators support significant loosening of the process for reviewing suspected wrongful convictions, the Justice Ministry has offered only limited reforms.
The Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters' expert panel approved a draft program directing the government to curb generative AI services that answer queries by summarizing news articles - a practice that publishers say siphons readers from the sites that produced the content. The panel is weighing rules that would require AI operators to honor opt-out requests from the content rights holders, as search engines already must.
Voice actor Kenjiro Tsuda, famous for anime roles, sued TikTok's operator in Tokyo District Court after an account used AI to clone his voice in nearly two hundred unauthorized videos. Because Japanese copyright law does not protect a person's voice, Tsuda’s suit is based on the Unfair Competition Prevention Law and the right of publicity. The Justice Ministry has separately begun expert discussions on regulating AI-generated voices and likenesses.
The Diet enacted a law requiring solar power plant operators to file disposal plans for used panels, anticipating a sixfold surge in panel waste to about 500,000 tons by 2040. Operators that submit inadequate plans or defy orders to revise them will face penalties.
Koreas
Police in the Gangnam District of Seoul arrested the man behind a YouTube gossip channel on charges of spreading false information against one of South Korea’s best-known actors, Kim Soo-hyun. The YouTuber, Kim Se-ui, posted last year that the actor had dated the late actress Kim Sae-ron while she was a minor and groomed her sexually. (None of the three Kims are related to each other.) Police allege that the YouTuber used artificial intelligence to create false audio and textual evidence of the relationship. Kim Soo-hyun denied the accusations but his career has suffered.
The Seoul Central District Court acquitted former President Yoon Suk Yeol of perjury for testifying that he, not former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, planned a Cabinet meeting that took place before his brief 2024 martial law decree. Because Korean law requires Cabinet deliberation for a lawful decree, prosecutors said Yoon lied to portray the meeting as genuine rather than a formality. However, the court decided that Yoon likely planned it himself.
South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back released a master plan for South Korea to begin producing nuclear-powered submarines, with the first one to be launched in the mid-2030s. Ahn spoke at the inaugural meeting of the Committee on Future Defense Strategy. An English-language document released by the Ministry of Defense said the submarines will be developed and built entirely within Korea. In October 2025, US President Donald Trump said the US will share its nuclear submarine propulsion technology with South Korea and approved South Korea building a nuclear-powered submarine at a South Korean-owned shipyard in Philadelphia.
President Lee Jae Myung said he would instruct his Cabinet to review punitive actions, including fines and even closure, against Ilbe, a far-right online forum known for ridiculing victims of national tragedies and political opponents. Recently, forum users mocked the late President Roh Moo-hyun on the anniversary of his death. Regulators can remove illegal posts but have no legal basis to shut the entire site. A 2018 review already found abolishing Ilbe unfeasible.
South Korea's National Assembly amended the Korean Sign Language Act to require interpretation of government announcements on disasters, infectious diseases, and national emergencies. The change gives deaf people who sign as their first language equal access to vital public information.
Taiwan
President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) proposed a NT$380 billion (US$12 billion) package to raise Taiwan's fertility rate -- among the world’s lowest at 0.69 -- through a mix of cash subsidies for children, more funds for fertility treatments, and longer parental leave. The measures would require approval by the opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan. Lai’s proposal would include most foreign workers in the extended parental leave, but would exclude migrant domestic workers and live-in caregivers outside the Labor Standards Act.
The Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) will depart on June 1 for a two-week visit to the United States to meet with US politicians and think tanks. It will be her first US visit in this role, and she hopes to discuss a “sustainable solution for cross-strait peace." Raymond Greene, director of the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto US embassy, said recently that many American politicians and scholars look forward to meeting Cheng in order to determine whether the KMT has changed its political orientation from anti-communism to aligning with Beijing’s positions.
The Supreme Court said the statute of limitations has expired for pressing money laundering charges against former President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). Chen, who was president from 2000 to 2008 and was the first Republic of China president from a party other than the Kuomintang, was convicted of bribery in 2009 and spent six years in prison before receiving medical parole in 2015.