October 11 – October 17
Highlights: China’s government announces plans to restrict or ban exports of forty technologies involving AI, chip design, and solar power; Hong Kong opens a mainland China border checkpoint at which travelers clear both sides’ exit/entry procedures in a single queue; a Japanese court rejects the first of six lawsuits that seek to hold Meta liable for failing to take down fake celebrity endorsements of scam investments; South Korea's president appoints the head of a new agency that took over prosecutors’ investigative powers; Taiwan blocks Coinbase and Kalshi over suspected betting on its November local elections.
China
Two government ministries announced plans to restrict or ban exports of forty technologies involving artificial intelligence, chip design, and solar power. A spokesperson from the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement that the national security was one of the reasons. Commerce joined with the Ministry of Science and Technology in releasing proposed updates to China’s catalogue of restricted technologies. The document did not identify specific AI models or products.
The State Taxation Administration issued national benchmarks for administrative penalties (全国税务行政处罚裁量基准) that bring social insurance contributions into its nationwide penalty standards, starting November 1. Employers that owe more than 5 million yuan (US$750,000) and over 30 percent of their contributions face fines of two to three times the arrears. Many employers skip the contributions required by the Social Insurance Law (社会保险法) or pay them on the minimum wage rather than actual payroll. The shortfall strains a pension system already under pressure from an aging population.
The Communist Party's Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission issued a guideline calling for harsher prosecution of food safety crimes, including tighter limits on suspended sentences and on exemptions from punishment. The commission also called for clearer standards for when market regulators must refer cases to criminal investigators. The guideline follows public anger over cases including cabbage treated with formaldehyde and bayberries soaked in chemicals.
The Lanzhou Intermediate People’s Court gave heavy prison sentences to a kindergarten operator and other employees responsible for serving food laced with lead to children and staff. In July 2025, more than 200 students and over twenty staff members were found to have abnormally high blood lead levels. The court sentenced the school’s operator Li Huifang to life in prison, the executive principal to fifteen years, and four others to terms ranging from six to eight years.
Some of China's richest people are winding down their offshore trusts, selling shares, and even switching nationality as a deadline looms to declare income booked overseas. In late July, the government set an October 22 deadline for the declaration of offshore trust income, with a tax of 20 percent to be imposed on dividends and share sales. There is no clear limit on how far back tax liability extends. Revenue-strapped local governments have stepped up scrutiny of capital outflows as well as tax-collection efforts.
The People's Bank of China gave Visa preliminary approval to set up a bank card clearing company in China to process domestic yuan card payments. Visa first applied in 2017. The approval follows a US-China trade consensus that included approving applications by American financial institutions, according to China's Ministry of Commerce.
Courts in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, sentenced three leaders of the Wei family crime group to death, three others to life in prison, and fifty-five accomplices to prison terms of up to twenty-four years. The Wei family was one of four clans that ran telecoms scam compounds in Myanmar's Kokang region. The courts found that the group handled more than 12.2 billion yuan (US$1.7 billion) in criminal proceeds and caused the deaths of four Chinese citizens. China executed members of the Ming and Bai families earlier this year.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and three other agencies proposed rules that would require automakers to test forty-one kinds of novel design features, including yoke steering wheels and voice controls, before models using them can be approved for sale. The draft would also ban folding screens and fully hidden door handles, which have hindered rescues after several crashes. The ministry has opened an investigation into brake pedal brackets that snapped in a test of a Huawei-backed luxury minivan.
The Ministry of Commerce proposed rules that would let aviation companies send engines, navigation systems, and other dual-use aircraft parts abroad for repair without a license for each shipment. Companies would instead register and receive export certificates automatically. The ministry said the rules would be the first to use the certificate system created by the Regulations on Export Control of Dual-Use Items (两用物项出口管制条例), which took effect in December 2024.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China announced rules that will limit how many airlines may serve each domestic route and restrict capacity increases where supply exceeds demand, starting this winter. The rules target what Beijing calls “involution-style” competition, meaning price wars that erode profits. Excess capacity and falling fares have deepened losses across the aviation industry.
The Foreign Ministry imposed sanctions under the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law (反外国制裁法) on Belize's foreign minister and Paraguay's information and communications technology minister for supporting ties with Taiwan. Belize and Paraguay are among Taiwan's few remaining diplomatic allies.
The mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Office barred mainland entities from doing business with a second company owned by the father of Puma Shen (沈伯洋), a Taiwan legislator and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate for Taipei mayor. China designated Shen a supporter of Taiwan independence in 2024 and put him on a wanted list.
Hong Kong
The new Huanggang Port opened at Hong Kong’s border with the mainland Chinese city of Shenzhen with a joint clearance system: travelers queue once while Hong Kong and mainland officials process their exit and entry side by side. Hong Kong law applies in the port's Hong Kong Port Area under a June decision of the National People's Congress Standing Committee and the Huanggang Port Hong Kong Port Area Ordinance, which took effect July 31. Secretary for Security Chris Tang has said the system will not send Hong Kong residents’ data to mainland authorities.
Wong Kwok-ngon, a former Apple Daily writer who posts on his YouTube channel as Wong On-yin, went on trial on charges of sedition and of disclosing details of a national security investigation. He is the first person prosecuted for such a disclosure. Prosecutors say Wong revealed in two videos that national security police had called him to a meeting in December 2025 on the day he planned to speak at a news conference about the deadly Wang Fuk Court fire. Wong told the court that officers said he should not to reveal what was said during the meeting, but never told him he could not mention the meeting itself.
The government renewed the free-to-air television licenses of TVB, HKTVE, and i-Cable HOY for twelve years. The terms of renewal require the stations to produce more English-language national education programs and programs aimed at “telling good stories” about Hong Kong. The government also eased requirements on the hours of officially designated “positive” programming that the stations must carry.
The Securities and Futures Commission froze more than HK$4.6 billion (US$590 million) in brokerage accounts linked to two suspected syndicates accused of rigging initial public offerings by secretly recycling listing proceeds to create false demand. The commission said the freeze was the largest it has ordered.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority issued supervisory guidance on how banks should adopt artificial intelligence responsibly. The authority also plans a discussion paper on supervising AI agents that carry out multistep tasks on their own, including a possible registry of material agents. More than 60 percent of the projects in its testing program for banks’ AI tools involved such agents.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption charged a former head of entrepreneurship at Cyberport, the government's technology hub, with accepting bribes to help an artificial intelligence start-up obtain subsidies. Alice So Nga-lai allegedly received plane tickets and luxury goods while running a HK$500 million (US$64 million) government subsidy program for small technology firms. The commission charged five others, including the start-up’s director, with conspiracy to defraud over at least 400 applications totaling HK$20 million (US$2.6 million).
Japan
The Yokohama District Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by investment fraud victims who sought to hold Meta Platforms liable for failing to remove ads on Facebook with fake celebrity endorsements. It was the first ruling among similar suits filed in six district courts. The court said it was difficult to conclude that Meta could easily have recognized the ads as fraudulent when they were posted. The plaintiffs plan to appeal.
The Cabinet approved three bills to secure oil supplies disrupted by the war in the Middle East. The bills would subsidize refiners that buy crude through routes avoiding the Strait of Hormuz and provide state backing for tanker insurance when overseas reinsurers withdraw. The government aims to pass them during the current extraordinary Diet session.
The House of Representatives declined to disclose records of closed-door talks among the leaders of both Diet chambers that produced the parliamentary consensus behind the controversial July revision of the Imperial House Law (皇室典範). The chamber said the records are legislative research documents rather than administrative documents subject to disclosure rules. The government restricted floor debate of the revision, which allows the imperial family to adopt men from former branches of the imperial family. It continues to bar women from the throne despite popular support for a female emperor.
The Russian Federal Security Service detained a Hokkaido Shimbun reporter on suspicion of espionage. The security service alleges that he gathered information for Japanese intelligence on how many soldiers were sent to fight in Ukraine from the Russian-controlled Kuril Islands, which include four islands claimed by Japan. A Moscow court ordered that the reporter be held for two months.
Koreas
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung appointed Kim Ji-yong as the inaugural head of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, which has taken on the criminal investigation role formerly performed by prosecutors. Lee had ordered additional vetting after hard-liners in his ruling bloc objected to Kim's perceived ties to former President Yoon Suk Yeol, who himself was a prosecutor.
South Korean Special Counsel Lee Tae-hwan said that officials at thirty election commissions falsified voter turnout records in the June 3 local elections by altering overall tallies to match hourly counts entered in error. The special counsel's team raided the National Election Commission and six local election offices to collect evidence.
An Uzbek man who spent more than sixteen years in prison serving a life sentence for robbery-murder and other charges was released after the Changwon District Court suspended his sentence and granted him a retrial. Bozorov Akmal, now 37, was arrested in 2009 on charges of robbing a taxi, but was subsequently accused and convicted of killing another taxi driver months earlier. The present court found serious problems with the police investigation that led to his conviction.
The South Korean Supreme Court upheld lower-court rulings that canceled about 154 billion won (US$107 million) in taxes on Google Korea's payments of domestic advertising revenue to a Singapore affiliate. The lower courts found that the payments were business income of the affiliate, which provides the advertising services, rather than royalties taxable in South Korea.
The South Korean Ministry of Employment and Labor said that owning shares in another company does not by itself oblige a shareholder to bargain with that company's union. The so-called Yellow Envelope Law, which took effect in March, extends the bargaining duty under the Trade Union Act to companies that substantially control working conditions. The opinion came after the Samsung Biologics union demanded bargaining with Samsung Electronics, its second-largest shareholder.
Taiwan
The New Taipei District Court authorized regulators to block the websites of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and the prediction market Kalshi at the request of the Criminal Investigation Bureau. The bureau suspects the platforms of taking bets on the November 28 local elections in violation of the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法). A 2023 amendment made election betting punishable by up to six months in prison for bettors and five years for operators.
Hualien prosecutors questioned an independent candidate for mayor of Hualien City on suspicion of violating the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法) by financing his campaign with money from Chinese sources. Prosecutors released him on bail. The act bars campaigning at the direction of, or with funding from, hostile foreign forces.
The National Immigration Agency deported a Chinese exchange student at National Taiwan University and barred him from Taiwan for five years. The student had posted a video on Douyin, China's version of TikTok, that made it look as if he was pinching President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) between his fingers, with hashtags calling for unification. The agency revoked his entry permit under the Regulations Governing Permission for People of the Mainland Area to Enter the Taiwan Area (大陸地區人民進入臺灣地區許可辦法), which allow deportation for conduct that violates the principles of equality and dignity.
Lawbank, a legal database, removed unofficial dissenting opinions that three Constitutional Court justices had published on it for a fee. It acted after a newspaper asked whether readers could mistake them for official rulings. Justices Tsai Tsung-jen (蔡宗珍), Yang Hui-chin (楊惠欽), and Chu Fu-mei (朱富美) have boycotted court deliberations for more than three hundred days. They say the eight-member court lacks the quorum of ten required by December 2024 amendments to the Constitutional Court Procedure Act (憲法訴訟法), amendments that the five other justices struck down as unconstitutional in December 2025.
The Taoyuan District Court ordered that two executives of drone maker Jiin Ming Industry (錦明實業) be detained and held incommunicado on suspicion of violating the National Security Act (國家安全法). Prosecutors suspect the company knowingly supplied the military with drones containing Chinese chips and lenses.
In a separate case, investigators searched a software company suspected of selling the Ministry of Foreign Affairs a rebranded Chinese product in violation of the Government Procurement Act (政府採購法), which bars purchases of Chinese information and communications technology.
The Ministry of National Defense proposed scrapping length of service limits for Air Force pilots, many of whom go on to better-paid airline jobs. Under the Act of Military Service for Officers and Non-commissioned Officers (陸海空軍軍官士官服役條例), lieutenant colonels may serve at most twenty-six years and colonels thirty, forcing them to retire even though they are only about 48-52 years old. The proposal awaits approval by the Executive Yuan, Taiwan's cabinet.