August 30 – September 5
Highlights: China amends its Lawyers Law to protect lawyers' right to practice while also requiring them to support Communist Party leadership; a Chinese court freezes up to US$300 million in assets held by Dutch chipmaker Nexperia in a long-running battle with Nexperia’s Chinese owner; a Hong Kong appeals court upholds the convictions of Cardinal Joseph Zen and four others for failing to register the non-profit organization they led that aided anti-government protesters; Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi faces calls to push back harder against the US imposition of sanctions on the International Criminal Court and its Japanese president; South Korea's Supreme Court rules that movie theaters must accommodate moviegoers who have visual or hearing impairments; Taiwan's Cabinet sent a US$19 billion supplementary budget request to the legislature in an attempt to restore defense funds that the opposition-controlled legislature cut in May.
China
Amendments to the Lawyers Law (中华人民共和国律师法), the statute governing China's legal profession, took effect on September 1, 2026. The amendments, which were approved by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on August 28, require courts, prosecutors' offices, police, and other state agencies to establish systems that guarantee lawyers' rights to practice. The law also requires lawyers to support Communist Party leadership and law firms to establish internal party organizations.
A lawyer who defended Beijing's Zion Church, an unregistered evangelical Christian congregation, has fled to Taiwan with her family to seek resettlement in a third country. Ruth Wang (王夏紅), a partner at VDoor Law Firm, told The Associated Press that Chinese authorities ordered the partners to dissolve the firm, revoked its founder's law license, barred him from leaving China, and suspended its other lawyers. Police arrested eighteen of the church's members, including founding pastor Jin Mingri, in October 2025. Jin was released from prison in July 2026 and flown to the United States. Wang said that she is being allowed to stay in Taiwan temporarily.
The Dongguan Intermediate People's Court froze up to 2.14 billion yuan (US$300 million) in assets held by Dutch chipmaker Nexperia, including its stakes in four China-based subsidiaries. The court acted in a pending lawsuit by Nexperia's Chinese owner, Wingtech Technology, which seeks 8 billion yuan (US$1.1 billion) in damages from Nexperia and three of its executives. The Dutch government stripped Wingtech of control of Nexperia in 2025 on the grounds that technology and production assets might be moved out of the Netherlands. The ownership dispute has strained China-Netherlands relations and disrupted global supplies of chips used in cars and consumer electronics.
The Ministry of Finance and State Taxation Administration released a draft Local Surtax Law (地方附加税法) for public comment. The draft would merge three local levies—the urban maintenance and construction tax and two education surcharges—into a single surtax collected on top of value-added and consumption tax payments. Provinces would set their own rates within a band of 11 to 13 percent. The reform is designed to stabilize local government finances by converting revenue that totaled about 913 billion yuan (US$128 billion) in 2025 from earmarked funds into flexible general-purpose income.
The Ministry of Commerce and two other central agencies jointly issued guidelines directing Chinese automakers to avoid price wars at home and strengthen legal compliance abroad. The guidelines respond to concern that aggressive discounting and compliance failures could damage Chinese brands and provoke regulatory backlash in export markets. Among other requirements, Chinese automakers manufacturing overseas must follow local labor laws, handle connected-vehicle data in accordance with local law, and strengthen international patent protections.
Volkswagen opened a compliance investigation into Changzhou Xingyu Automotive Lighting Systems, a Chinese auto parts supplier, over allegations of labor abuses. Xingyu forced out 107 recent graduates, most of them hired for research and development roles, about a month after they joined the company. Instead of pursuing labor arbitration in China, the dismissed workers complained directly to European automakers, whose supply-chain rules require suppliers to respect labor rights, and to the European Union's forced labor reporting channel. Caixin reported that BMW and Mercedes-Benz also opened reviews. Xingyu attributed the dismissals to restructuring.
The Communist Party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced an investigation into Liu Jianyang, head of the Organization Department of the Jiangsu Province Communist Party committee, the office that controls personnel appointments in the province. Liu is the forty-eighth senior official placed under investigation this year.
The General Administration of Sport announced investigations into Chinese Badminton Association Vice President Xia Xuanze and former Secretary-General Wang Wei. They are the latest targets of an anti-corruption sweep of the sports sector that toppled the association's president in May.
The Urumqi Intermediate People's Court sentenced former senior political adviser Liu Kuanren, a celebrated performer of traditional Chinese wind instruments, to fifteen years in prison for bribery and embezzlement involving more than 48 million yuan (US$7.3 million). Liu pleaded guilty at trial in June.
A US federal court sentenced American journalist Thomas Pauken II to two years in prison for acting as an agent of the Chinese government within the United States. Pauken, who formerly worked in China for Chinese state media outlets including Xinhua, pleaded guilty earlier this year. He was arrested after trying to put an unidentified Trump administration official in contact with a woman whom Pauken believed to be a Chinese intelligence agent.
Hong Kong
The Court of Appeal upheld the convictions of Cardinal Joseph Zen, the city's retired Catholic bishop, and four other trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund for failing to register it as a society under the Societies Ordinance. The fund paid medical and legal fees for people arrested during the city’s massive 2019 anti-government protests. The judges held that requiring registration did not unacceptably burden freedom of association. The trustees will ask the Court of Final Appeal to clarify what counts as a “society” that must register.
Pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong pleaded guilty in the High Court to conspiracy to collude with foreign forces, an offense under the National Security Law punishable by up to life in prison. Prosecutors said Wong asked foreign governments in 2020 to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and mainland China. Wong is already serving four years and eight months for subversion for participating in an unofficial primary election in 2020.
Canada’s immigration authorities stopped accepting new applications to a program that was created in 2021 following the imposition of Hong Kong’s National Security Law to help Hong Kong residents resettle permanently in Canada. Under the so-called “lifeboat” program, Canada has granted permanent residence to more than 13,000 of nearly 49,000 applicants. Those still waiting may live and work in Canada under a related work permit until May 2029.
The M+ museum canceled a performance by singer-songwriter Wong Hin-yan one day before the show, citing only a “program change.” Wong, who has a history of social activism, performed at a solidarity concert for jailed activists in 2017. He is only the latest performer to have an event abruptly canceled without explanation in recent years.
Japan
A senior lawmaker of the governing Liberal Democratic Party and former defense minister, Gen Nakatani, urged Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to demand that the US withdraw sanctions it imposed against the International Criminal Court and its Japanese president, Tomoko Akane. The Trump administration accuses the court of unfairly investigating actions by US and Israeli soldiers. Nakatani said there is no reason for the ICC and Akane to come under US “political coercion and sanctions.” Takaichi is expected to visit the US later this month to attend the UN General Assembly.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry proposed two changes to the system that requires companies of a certain size to have workers with disabilities make up 2.7 percent of their workforce. Job placement businesses that help other companies meet their quotas would become subject to government supervision; this follows news reports that some placed workers have been given no work at all. The ministry also proposed that for quota-setting purposes, only persons with disabilities who recently looked for work but failed to find it should be counted as unemployed. This change would slow increases in the quota, which many companies say has grown too fast.
Government bodies announced plans to use generative artificial intelligence in courts, policing, and consumer protection. The Supreme Court made its first AI-related budget request, seeking about ¥60 million (US$375,000) to test whether generative AI can draft summaries and lists of contested issues from records of settled civil lawsuits. The National Police Agency requested about ¥9 billion (US$56 million) for AI-based programs, including one to flag social media posts by individuals who have been radicalized and might engage in violent acts. Police currently monitor such posts manually. The Consumer Affairs Agency established a unit that will use AI to sift through the roughly 900,000 consumer complaints filed each year for signs of investment fraud.
Koreas
The South Korean Supreme Court ruled that movie theaters must provide aids including audio descriptions, subtitles, and hearing devices for moviegoers with visual or hearing impairments. It held that failing to do so constitutes discrimination under the Act on the Prohibition of Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities and Remedy Against Infringement of Their Rights. The court reversed a Seoul High Court decision that limited the requirement to theaters with at least 300 seats and to 3 percent of screenings. Four moviegoers sued the country's three largest theater chains in 2016.
The Seoul Central District Court sentenced Han Hak-ja, leader of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, widely known as the Unification Church, to a combined two years in prison for bribery and political funding offenses. The court gave Han, who is 83, one year for involvement in providing 100 million won (about US$73,000) to a lawmaker ahead of the 2022 presidential election. It gave her another year for involvement in giving Chanel bags and a diamond necklace worth about 80 million won (US$58,000) to Kim Keon Hee, the wife of ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol. Kim was sentenced earlier this year to twenty months in prison for accepting bribes from the church. Han denies wrongdoing.
The Supreme Court ruled that room cafes, where customers rent private booths equipped with televisions, mats, and pillows, are off-limits to minors under the Youth Protection Act. It said the ban is not limited to venues where hostesses have physical contact with customers or where operators pair up strangers. The court found that the cafe's booths, which could not be seen into from outside, created the possibility of sexual conduct inside. It overturned the acquittal of a Suwon operator accused of admitting eight teenagers and ordered a new trial.
The Seoul Central District Court ordered a man who threatened to blow up a Shinsegae department store in central Seoul to pay the full cost of the police response, about 12.6 million won (US$9,200). Police deployed 277 officers after the man posted the threat in a YouTube comment in August 2025. According to the police, it is the first ruling to grant full reimbursement of the costs of responding to an online threat.
The Korea Herald examined South Korea's alternative service for conscientious objectors, who must live and work in correctional facilities for thirty-six months, twice as long as the standard eighteen-month term in the Army. Before creating the system in 2020, South Korea imprisoned objectors, many of whom were Jehovah's Witnesses. The National Human Rights Commission, the country's independent state human rights body, has recommended a shorter term and placement in other fields of service including social welfare and firefighting, but the Constitutional Court upheld the system in 2024.
Taiwan
The Cabinet approved a NT$607.6 billion (US$19.12 billion) supplementary budget request, the latest move in a months-long struggle with the opposition-controlled legislature over defense spending. It is seeking to restore NT$145.7 billion (US$4.6 billion), mostly for drones and missile defense, that lawmakers cut in May. The largest share, NT$233.8 billion (US$7.4 billion), would cover losses at the state-run oil supplier CPC Corp. The opposition Taiwan People's Party said the subsidy violates the Budget Act (預算法), which permits such funding only after a major incident. The Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) demanded that the premier first countersign an opposition-passed law that funds drone purchases, so it can be promulgated.
Prosecutors in Kaohsiung indicted a former Ministry of Health and Welfare contract employee on charges of bribery, leaking confidential documents, and assisting money laundering in violation of the National Security Act (國家安全法), the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例), and the Money Laundering Control Act (洗錢防制法). Prosecutors said a member of a “foreign hostile force”—a term that generally refers to China—paid the woman NT$5,000 (US$158) a month to supply lists of Taiwanese journalists, photograph confidential documents, and funnel bribes to military personnel through other people's bank accounts.
The Taipei District Prosecutors Office indicted a retired detective and a suspended officer on charges of taking bribes in violation of the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例) and leaking personal data in violation of the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法). Prosecutors said underground money lenders tied to a criminal syndicate paid the two more than NT$7 million (US$220,000) to pull more than nine hundred private phone records from internal police databases.
The Cabinet approved draft amendments to the National Sports Act (國民運動法) to protect child athletes. The amendments would make sexual assault, serious bullying, corporal punishment, and directing athletes to use banned substances statutory grounds for denying or revoking the certification of coaches and referees. They would also abolish sports-focused classes at elementary schools and convert them into sports clubs. The proposal now goes to the legislature.
A Chinese diplomat warned of “consequences” for Taiwan after officials from Beijing and Taipei attended the opening ceremony of the annual summit of the Pacific Islands Forum in Koror, Palau. Although neither China nor Taiwan is a member of the forum, both are forum partners and sent representatives who were seated near each other at the opening. China’s representative, Pacific Envoy Qian Bo, later told reporters that the presence of Taiwanese officials was “very inappropriate.” Palau is one of a handful of countries that has diplomatic ties with Taiwan.