June 28 – July 04
Highlights: China imposes new export controls on forty Japanese entities; Hong Kong consults the public about far-reaching changes to its sexual offense laws, including making them gender-neutral; Japan's lower house passes a flag-desecration bill over objections about curbing free expression; two South Korean government ministries agree to recommend lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 13 from 14 for serious crimes; in its first law regulating virtual assets, Taiwan's legislature requires cryptocurrency firms to obtain licenses.
China
The Ministry of Commerce imposed new export controls on forty Japanese entities it says are contributing to the country’s “remilitarization.” It placed twenty Japanese companies and defense research institutes on a control list that prohibits Chinese and foreign exporters from selling to them dual-use items made in China. It also added twenty other entities to a watch list for dual-use items. The companies join forty other Japanese entities put on the export control list or watch list in February in displeasure over Japan’s heightened defense posture.
China released the pastor of one of the country’s most prominent unregistered Christian churches, whom it had detained since last October, and put him on a plane to the United States. The daughter of Zion Church founder Jin Mingri said he arrived in Los Angeles on July 3. Jin was one of several prisoners whom US President Donald Trump had asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to release when they met in May. Eight Zion Church members remain in detention.
China indicated plans to extend indefinitely its coast guard patrols of international waters east of Taiwan. The Coast Guard issued a statement on July 4 saying that was replacing one multi-ship task group with another to continue what it called “law enforcement patrols.” China began the patrols on June 1 after Japan and the Philippines announced they were negotiating the maritime boundary of their respective exclusive economic zones and continental shelves in that area. According to Taiwan officials, the Chinese ships have hailed some commercial vessels and asked them to explain their presence. The area involved is beyond Taiwan’s territorial waters, and the exact nature of China’s jurisdictional claim is not clear.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission proposed changes to rules for refinancing by listed companies, releasing draft revisions it said would help companies to raise capital. The revised rules would allow eligible companies to carry out multiple share issues via private placement after registering the plan only once.
Local authorities said that the 66-year-old man who piloted a single-engine sport plane into a high-rise building in Beijing had a history of anxiety and suicidal thoughts. The man, identified only by his family name, Liu, flew the plane into the CITIC Tower in the capital’s central business district on June 26, breaking some windows and crashing to the ground. He died and thirteen bystanders were injured. Authorities have issued only two brief statements about the highly unusual incident and have scrubbed all mention of it from the internet.
The National Audit Office reported 1.08 billion yuan (US$160 million) in mishandled maternity insurance and subsidy funds, affecting more than one million people. The audit found that some benefits had been left unpaid by local governments, others were withheld by employers who had claimed them on workers' behalf or obtained via fraud such as faked employment.
The China Automotive Battery Innovation Alliance, an industry group, plans to create a national patent pool to help Chinese battery makers defend against a rising wave of patent litigation abroad. Such pools let members share patents for cross-licensing and mount joint counterclaims. Chinese firms now dominate the global electric-vehicle and storage-battery markets. Foreign rivals have turned to patent litigation to slow their expansion.
A Beijing court sentenced a whistleblower to six years and ten months in prison, saying that Zhao Ruisheng used illegal methods to collect personal information about the former chairman of the state-owned Xinjiang Energy Group. The court also found Zhao tried to extort Hu. Zhao’s attorney said the criminal charges were retaliation for whistleblowing.
Alibaba and its US payment arm agreed to pay US$600 million to settle US Justice Department allegations that they failed to stop sellers from shipping illegal drugs and pill presses to American buyers. Alibaba admitted that its platforms had been used for such sales for years.
A US federal court sentenced Guo Wengui, a Chinese businessman who reinvented himself in the United States as a critic of the Communist Party, to thirty years in prison for racketeering, fraud, and money laundering. Prosecutors said Guo convinced hundreds of thousands of people to invest a total of more than US$1 billion in his companies, including GTV Media Group Inc., but used the money to fund a lavish lifestyle. Guo fled China after being accused of corruption there.
A leading member of the Tibetan diaspora community died in New York City after appearing to set himself on fire outside the United Nations. Other activists said Lobsang Palden, 52, had in recent days public protested China’s Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, which took effect July 1.
Hong Kong
The government opened a one-month public consultation on a broad overhaul of the city's sexual offense laws. Under current law, only men can be convicted of rape as principal offenders and only women can be victims. The proposals would make rape and other offenses gender-neutral, broaden the definition of rape, set a uniform age of consent at 16, create new offenses such as sexual grooming of a child, and increase penalties for some offenses.
The High Court upheld the dismissal of a former government prosecutor over two emails he sent from his official account. The court ruled that the emails violated the code of conduct that requires prosecutors to remain politically neutral. In a 2019 email, William Wong Wa-fun accused the police of lying about their reasons for arresting opposition figures during that year's anti-government protests. In a 2020 email, he urged colleagues to join him in commemorating the 1989 Chinese military attack on peaceful protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. The court agreed with a disciplinary inquiry that Wong should be fired and stripped of twenty-six years of pension benefits.
A former lawmaker and chair of the now-disbanded Democratic Party, Wu Chi-wai, was released after completing his prison term of four years and five months. Wu was among forty-seven opposition figures convicted of conspiracy to commit subversion for holding an unofficial primary election in 2020. Wu, who pleaded guilty, is the twentieth member of the group to complete his prison term.
Japanese immigration officers questioned Jimmy Sham, another defendant in the case, for nearly twenty-two hours at Tokyo's Haneda Airport before admitting him. Sham, who was released from prison in May 2025, said Japanese officials told him that Japan does not admit visitors who have served more than one year in prison.
A seventy-four-year-old student magazine at the University of Hong Kong called Undergrad shut down after failing to recruit a new editorial board. The magazine had scaled back its work since the university withdrew recognition of the student union in 2021. Student unions across Hong Kong have been disbanded or evicted from campuses since the 2019 protests and the 2020 National Security Law.
Japan
The lower house of parliament passed a bill that would criminalize publicly damaging the national flag in a way that causes others extreme discomfort or disgust, punishable by up to two years in prison. Japan already punishes desecrating a foreign country's flag but has never criminalized damaging its own. Critics, including some in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, warn that the measure threatens freedom of expression guaranteed by the constitution. The bill now goes to the upper house.
A businessman is demanding ¥11 million (US$67,800) in damages for alleged unlawful interrogations by a special investigation squad of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office in 2021. Naoyuki Ikuta, who was later convicted of fraud, said prosecutors insulted and threatened him over the course of about 205 hours of interrogation between May 2021 and July 2021. The Tokyo District Court agreed to play more than an hour of footage from the the interrogation in open court next month. It also agreed to hear criminal charges against the lead prosecutor.
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry committed ¥387.3 billion (US$2.4 billion) to develop a domestic “physical AI” foundation model, the software that controls robots, in a bid to close the gap with the United States and China. A consortium led by Noetra Corp., a company backed by the telecom operator SoftBank, will build the model with the government's national research institute and release upgraded versions each year for five years.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi instructed her minister of state for ocean policy to revise its Arctic policy for the first time since 2015 because of the region’s growing geopolitical importance. China and Russia have stepped up their activities in the region, including securing sea routes and developing resources. Japan’s policy revision, planned for fiscal year 2027, is meant to deepen cooperation with friendly countries over Arctic sea routes and security.
Koreas
South Korea's Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Gender Equality and Family agreed to recommend lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 13 from 14 for serious crimes. Polls indicate strong public support for the change, even though a a government deliberative body of experts and citizens recently recommended against it. One reason is the surge in criminal actions by children under 14. Any change requires the National Assembly to amend the Criminal Act.
Han Seong-sook took office as South Korea's prime minister, only the second woman to hold the office and the first since 2007. The National Assembly confirmed her with 166 votes in the 300-seat chamber, as the opposition People Power Party boycotted the vote. In South Korea's presidential system, the prime minister is the second-ranking executive official and is appointed by the president with the National Assembly's consent. Before entering politics, Han led Naver, South Korea's largest internet search company.
The Seoul Administrative Court issued what it said was South Korea's first “easy-read” judgment following the implementation of new Supreme Court guidelines for better supporting vulnerable groups. The document was just four pages, compared with more than twenty for the full judgment, and used short sentences and illustrations to explain the outcome. In the underlying case, the court overturned a Seoul district office's refusal to register the plaintiff as having an intellectual disability.
The South Korean Supreme Court nullified a lower court judgment that was issued without giving either party the required notice. An appellate panel of the Daejeon District Court told both parties to a contract dispute that it was postponing issuance of a decision for about a month. But the panel then issued its judgment that same afternoon without notifying either party. The Supreme Court sent the case back for redeliberation.
Taiwan
The Legislative Yuan passed the Virtual Asset Service Act (虛擬資產服務法), Taiwan's first law regulating virtual assets. The law requires cryptocurrency firms to obtain licenses from the Financial Supervisory Commission. It also requires stablecoin issuers to back their tokens with full reserves held in trust at domestic financial institutions, where they remain beyond creditors' reach if the issuer goes bankrupt.
The opposition Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) and Taiwan People's Party advanced plans to submit five referendum questions to the public during the November 28 elections for mayors, county commissioners, and other local positions. The questions touch on keeping the death penalty, restarting nuclear power generation, allowing absentee voting, allowing caning as punishment for certain crimes, and designating uses for traffic fines. Central Election Commission Chairman Michael You (游盈隆) warned that the election system could handle at most two questions.
Both the KMT and TPP introduced bills to fund a military drone program through the annual defense budget. The two parties teamed up in June to reject the Executive Yuan’s proposal for a special budget that would fund government drone purchases through 2031. The ruling Democratic Progressive Party argues that the domestic drone industry needs secure long-term funding to develop, while the opposition parties say that special budgets create a risk of corruption and the annual budgeting process ensures appropriate legislative oversight.
Health Minister Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said the government will consider easing access to the morning-after pill after a heated public debate triggered by a proposal from the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration that would have curbed access. The proposal was to add the pill to a national drug-tracking system, which would have ended sale of the pill at some pharmacies. Shih said the government is now reviewing Japan's model, where emergency contraceptives are available on a limited pharmacist-supervised over-the-counter basis.