June 07 – June 13
Highlights: China’s Coast Guard begins questioning merchant ships east of Taiwan to assert its jurisdiction after Japan and the Philippines announce plans to talk about their maritime boundaries; Hong Kong gives its chief executive sole power to designate any criminal case a national security case, automatically reducing the defendant’s procedural protections; Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party again tries to reduce the number of seats in the Diet to reflect the country’s shrinking population; South Korean police and prosecutors raid offices of the National Election Commission to investigate ballot shortages that disrupted local elections on June 3; the chairwoman of Taiwan's Nationalist Party brings her message of reconciliation between Taiwan and China to the United States.
China
State media said the Coast Guard has begun patrolling waters east of Taiwan to carry out “maritime traffic law enforcement” after Japan and the Philippines announced they would hold formal talks on their maritime boundaries. Taiwan said Chinese ships were radioing merchant vessels and asking their origin and destination, number of crew, and other questions. Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung called the patrols a pretext for expansion.
The Beijing branch of the State Administration for Market Regulation summoned Alibaba, JD.com, PDD Holdings, ByteDance, and Xiaohongshu over alleged false advertising during “618,” China's mid-year online shopping festival. According to state broadcaster CCTV, some of the companies were accused of making misleading promises of subsidies and price cuts.
State Council regulations took effect to allow qualified hospitals to sell advanced procedures such as cell therapies, brain implants, and animal-to-human transplants without standard drug approval. The Regulations on the Administration of Clinical Research and Clinical Translation and Application of Biomedical New Technologies (生物医学新技术临床研究和临床转化应用管理条例), approved in September 2025 and effective May 1, 2026, also bar researchers from charging patients to join clinical trials. The rules are part of China’s effort to become a medical tourism destination.
The Workers' Daily, the newspaper of China's state-run trade union federation, urged government agencies to protect worker rights as AI is increasingly adopted in workplaces. Technological advancement should not become “a tool for a small number of employers to undermine workers’ rights,” the newspaper wrote in an unusual commentary. While the government has been a major promoter of AI, it has reportedly begun to warn companies not to cut jobs as they adopt AI. Courts in Beijing and Hangzhou have ruled recently that companies must retrain or reassign employees whose work is taken over by AI.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that authorities have criminally detained Min Zin, an American political scientist who writes about Myanmar and China’s trade and engagement with Myanmar, on suspicion of spying. A colleague said Min Zin disappeared on June 3 after going to the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming for a conference. The US State Department said consular officials have visited him.
The US Justice Department seized thirteen web domains run by fake consulting firms that allegedly used job ads to recruit US government and military employees, then pressure them to pass secrets to Chinese intelligence.
Hong Kong
Using a procedure that bypasses legislative debate, the government gave its chief executive the sole power to designate any criminal case a national security case, automatically reducing the defendant’s procedural protections. The government published in its official gazette the new Safeguarding National Security (Procedural Matters) Regulation, calling it procedural fix to the security regime built after the 2019 anti-extradition protests. The regulation allows the chief executive to certify a case as involving national security even if the alleged criminal act was done before Hong Kong’s national security legislation was enacted. The regulation does not provide any guidelines for making the designation, which is exempt from judicial review.
The District Court convicted former law student Alice Tong of rioting during the 2019 anti-extradition protests after prosecutors appealed her 2021 acquittal and won a retrial. The same judge who previously found the evidence insufficient this time called the circumstantial case against her overwhelming and remanded her in custody pending sentencing.
Police and the Independent Commission Against Corruption brought criminal charges against seven people and two building companies in connection with the city’s deadliest fire in decades. The charges included manslaughter, conspiracy to defraud, money laundering, attempting to pervert the course of public justice, and tax evasion. The massive blaze at Wang Fuk Court, engulfed seven apartment buildings and killed 168 people on Nov. 26, 2025.
The West Kowloon Magistrates' Court sentenced a construction worker to ten months in prison after he pleaded guilty to committing seditious acts by throwing leaflets from his apartment window on two occasions in 2024 and 2025. In 2024, the leaflets thrown by Raymond Wong said: “Kill police,” while those in 2025, ahead of the city’s legislative election, said: “Liberate Hong Kong, do not vote.” The slogan is considered secessionist.
Japan
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party approved a bill that could cut 45 of the 176 proportional representation seats in the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament. The House has a total of 465 seats, most of which are held by representatives from single-seat constituencies. The LDP and its coalition partner failed in an attempt last year to reduce the number of both types of seats to reflect Japan’s shrinking population. Its new proposal would automatically eliminate 45 proportional seats if a cross-party panel fails to reach agreement on electoral reform within a year.
The government began drafting revisions to the Imperial House Law after political parties reached a consensus on measures to increase the official size of the imperial family. The agreed revisions would allow women to retain their imperial status after marriage and allow male members from former imperial family branches to be adopted back into the family. The government hopes to enact the revisions before the current parliamentary session ends July 17.
The government of Mie Prefecture released the final draft of an ordinance to criminalize customer harassment of service workers by making abusive demands, intimidation, and stalking. Governor Katsuyuki Ichimi said fines and imprisonment would deter such conduct more effectively than the purely declaratory ordinances that at least fourteen other localities have adopted since 2025. The next step will be submission to the prefectural assembly in September for a vote.
The Immigration Services Agency has denied residency renewals to several dozen foreign residents who municipalities reported as failing to pay their National Health Insurance premiums. More than one hundred municipalities now share such data with the ISA. According to data from about 150 municipalities, only about 63 percent of foreign residents pay their health insurance premiums, compared with a 93 percent payment rate for all insured persons, including Japanese citizens.
Koreas
A joint police-prosecution team raided the headquarters of the National Election Commission (NEC) and six of its local offices to investigate paper ballot shortages that disrupted local elections on June 3. The team was looking for evidence of election law violations or dereliction of duty. South Korean news reports said the search warrant named as a suspect former NEC Chairperson Roh Tae-ak, who resigned after the botched election.
President Lee Jae Myung convened the heads of the National Assembly, Supreme Court, Constitutional Court, and Cabinet to discuss how to investigate the NEC, which operates with a high degree of independence. The group agreed to pursue an overhaul of the election management system and hold officials accountable.
The Seoul Eastern District Court granted the request of Reform Party Seoul’s mayoral candidate Kim Jeong-cheol to preserve a ballot storage box, surveillance footage, and officials’ chat records from an affected polling station as evidence for potential litigation. The ballot box at issue was later discovered to be missing. It could show whether the polling station prepared fewer ballots than NEC guidelines require.
The chair of the opposition People Power Party, Jang Dong-hyeok, said the party will introduce a special bill to authorize a nationwide election rerun, which under current law requires a court ruling.
Student bodies at sixteen universities issued simultaneous demands for an investigation of the ballot shortages, reform of the NEC, and remedies for voters unable to cast ballots. Most distanced their demands from far-right claims that the elections were rigged and did not call for a rerun.
The Justice Ministry launched a committee to review allegations of human rights violations and abuses of authority by prosecutors. The committee began operations and designated seven cases for initial review. Three of the cases involve the current president, Lee Jae Myung, who was indicted and tried on corruption and other charges before he took office. The new committee is part of a larger effort under Lee to rein in the powerful prosecution service.
The Ministry of National Defense is considering amendments to the Framework Act on Military Status and Service that would allow soldiers to challenge, and sometimes refuse, orders of doubtful legality. Such reforms have been debated since the December 2024 martial law declaration by then-President Yoon Suk Yeol, who ordered troops to prevent legislators from entering the National Assembly. The current law states that military personnel must obey official orders from superiors in performing their duties.
Taiwan
Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun concluded a nearly two-week trip to the US during which she criticized President Lai Ching-te and promoted dialogue and engagement with China as the best way to guarantee peace across the Taiwan Strait. Cheng met with Taiwanese and Chinese immigrant community groups, think tanks, nine members of Congress, local government leaders, and undisclosed officials in the Trump administration. She claimed that her views are aligned with those of President Donald Trump because both want to avoid any unnecessary war.
The Legislative Yuan amended the Public Officials Election and Recall Act to allow persons who have been given suspended sentences or sentenced to community service to run for elected office. The opposition Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) and Taiwan People's Party pushed the revision through over objections by Democratic Progressive Party representatives that the goal is to allow Hsinchu Mayor Kao Hung-an to run in this year’s local elections. Kao was convicted of forgery but is appealing.
The Legislative Yuan's Finance Committee voted to freeze NT$30 million (US$950,000) of Taiwan's 2026 contribution to the Asian Development Bank until the bank stops using the label “Taipei, China" rather than “Taiwan.” The current Taiwan government views the label as implying that Taiwan is part of China. Legislators from both ruling and opposition parties backed the freeze in a rare show of unity.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai said the opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan's months-long delay in passing this year's central government budget has frozen plans for a NT$3.46 billion (US$109 million) tourism subsidy program. President Lai warned that the same impasse has stalled more than NT$10 billion (US$315 million) in flood control spending as the rainy and typhoon seasons approach.
Partisan gridlock forced the Legislative Yuan's Social Welfare Committee to shelve two rival plans to create incentives for Taiwan parents to have more children. The Democratic Progressive Party favors a NT$5,000 ($158) monthly child allowance; the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) and Taiwan People's Party would instead create child savings accounts.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) barred local as well as central government officials from attending the Straits Forum, an annual China-hosted gathering. The MAC regards the forum as a Chinese Communist Party effort to infiltrate Taiwan. The council said it would reject every application to attend the forum even though the Cross-Strait Act requires only certain local officials to obtain central government approval for travel to China.
The National Communications Commission, Taiwan's broadcast regulator, advised news outlets to disclose AI-generated content and credit any third-party AI material. The non-binding guidance implements the Artificial Intelligence Act, effective January 14, which tasks regulators with helping industries manage AI risks.
Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said Chinese authorities have detained twenty Taiwanese since early 2025 for spreading their religious beliefs. Most of those detained are followers of I-Kuan Tao, a Chinese salvationist group. China considers the group an illegal cult and also prosecutes missionary work under Article 300 of the Criminal Code.
The Legislative Yuan amended the Urban Road Act to replace the fuel-based fee that funds road maintenance with one charged on all vehicles. The action closes a loophole that allowed electric vehicle owners to use the roads for free.