October 25 – October 31
Highlights: China's Communist Party ratifies the purge of thirty-three senior officials and resolves to strengthen self-discipline; Hong Kong's chief executive apologizes and promises to make bid-rigging a crime after an independent inquiry finds that regulators share the blame for a fatal 2025 highrise fire; Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and two other parties agree to cut thirty-one lower house seats; South Korea's ruling party moves to investigate the Supreme Court chief justice; Taiwan's legislature authorizes the death penalty for drug-impaired drivers who cause a fatality.
China
The Communist Party's Central Committee ended a four-day plenum by ratifying the purge of thirty-three committee members and adopting a resolution calling for stronger party self-discipline. According to the Resolution on Certain Major Issues Concerning Persevering with Full and Rigorous Party Self-Governance (中共中央关于持之以恒推进全面从严治党若干重大问题的决定), the party should strengthen its oversight system and hold its own officials accountable for failure to enforce discipline. Expelled officials include former Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia, former Politburo member Ma Xingrui, and Liu Jianchao, a former head of the party's International Department. The plenum elevated Zhang Shengmin, vice chairman of the military commission, to the Politburo. The Central Committee announced that the party's next national congress will meet in the second half of 2027. General Secretary Xi Jinping is expected to win a fourth five-year term at the congress.
The State Council issued Regulations on the Registration and Administration of Public Institutions (事业单位登记管理条例), with strengthening the Communist Party's leadership listed as the No. 1 objective of such institutions. Public institutions are nonprofit bodies set up by government agencies or with state assets that provide services in such fields as education, science, culture, and health care. Their annual reports must now include party building work as well as any businesses they run. The regulations take effect December 1 and replace previous interim rules.
The Ministry of Commerce proposed Special Provisions on Protecting Chinese Trade Secrets (保护中国商业秘密特别规定) that would allow it to penalize foreign entities whose infringement of Chinese trade secrets harms or threatens China's sovereignty, security, or development interests. Possible penalties include bans on trade in goods and technology with the offending entity, bans on new investment in China, banning its personnel from entering China, and fines. The draft came a week after the United States sanctioned five Chinese companies over alleged trade secret theft. Comments on the draft are due November 24.
China and twenty-five other countries signed the UN Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents at a ceremony in Ghana. China proposed the treaty to the UN Commission on International Trade Law. It provides a legal framework for using transport documents to finance cross-border trade, including overland trade.
The People's Bank of China, China’s central bank, set up a facility to stabilize the bond market during periods of systemic stress. It will let major bank wealth management subsidiaries and public fund managers borrow central bank bills to raise cash when their funds face large redemptions. Bank Governor Pan Gongsheng has said the tool will be used only when redemptions threaten a spiral of forced bond sales.
The Chengdu Intermediate People's Court sentenced Wang Huimin, formerly the top party discipline official at the China Securities Regulatory Commission, to death with a two-year reprieve for taking more than 436 million yuan (US$65 million) in bribes. After two years, his sentence likely will be reduced to life in prison without the possibility of parole or further reduction.
Hong Kong
Chief Executive John Lee and other top officials bowed in public apology for the role that government regulators played in a fire that killed 168 people at the Wang Fuk Court housing estate in November 2025. More than 4,600 residents were left homeless. An independent committee's report found that the Housing Bureau, Buildings Department, Fire Services Department, and Labor Department share responsibility for the fire. Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho resigned. Lee promised to make bid-rigging in building maintenance projects a crime punishable by up to ten years in prison; bid-rigging is now subject only to civil penalties. Lee also ordered an investigation into whether officials in four departments should be held accountable.
The Securities and Futures Commission approved trading two tokenized money market funds on a licensed virtual asset trading platform. The funds’ units are issued as blockchain tokens, which investors can now sell to one another around the clock. The commission introduced a pilot framework for such trading in April.
Eight companies, including Uber, applied for ride-hailing platform licenses by the October 30 deadline under a new licensing system. The Transport Department aims to announce the approved platforms by the end of the year, with an initial quota of 10,000 vehicle permits.
Japan
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party, its ally the Japan Innovation Party, and the opposition Democratic Party for the People agreed to cut thirty-one of the 176 proportional representation seats in the House of Representatives, the lower house. The three parties will jointly draft a bill to submit during the current extraordinary Diet session. The ruling parties previously sought to cut forty-five seats.
Kyodo News reported that Tokyo prosecutors indicted a company executive for refusing to hand over data from his seized smartphone. The Supreme Public Prosecutors Office said it was the first prosecution under a power added to the Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法) in May, which allows investigators to obtain a court warrant ordering a person to hand over electronic data. Refusal without good reason is punishable by up to one year in prison. The company executive told the court that he had forgotten his password.
The Cabinet adopted an order setting criteria for designating “secondary capitals” that would take over national functions if a major disaster strikes Tokyo. Four prefectures meet the criteria: Hokkaido, Aichi, Osaka, and Fukuoka. The order implements a law that took effect October 30. Passage of the law was a pillar of the coalition agreement between the Liberal Democratic Party and the Osaka-based Japan Innovation Party.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said that a vice governor or deputy mayor may initiate the resignation of a governor or mayor whom a doctor finds unconscious with no prospect of recovery. The Local Autonomy Act now allows a local leader to be removed only by an assembly no-confidence vote or a recall by residents. The ministry said it will consider writing the procedure into law.
The Tokyo District Court ordered a Kofu city assembly member to pay damages to Taiwan-born author Li Kotomi, a winner of the Akutagawa Prize for literature, for violating her privacy by posting online that she is transgender. The assembly member also posted Li’s legal name and a photograph of her as a minor, before her gender transition. The court said the information was closely tied to her gender identity and there was no reasonable justification for making it public.
Okinawa prosecutors indicted a US Marine on robbery and murder charges for allegedly strangling a woman in a hotel room in Naha, Okinawa's capital, on October 3 and taking her belongings. Lance Corporal Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, is stationed at the Futenma Air Base.
The Supreme Court rejected a suit seeking to invalidate the proportional representation vote in the July 2025 House of Councillors election, reaffirming earlier rulings that the chamber's special quota system is constitutional. Under the system, introduced in 2019, parties may designate candidates who take the party's seats first, regardless of how many personal votes they receive. The plaintiffs argued that this violates the constitutional requirement that both houses of the Diet consist of elected members representing all the people.
Koreas
South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party will seek a parliamentary investigation of Supreme Court Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae for alleged interference in the 2025 presidential election. Just weeks before that election the Supreme Court overturned the acquittal of Democratic presidential candidate Lee Jae Myung on charges of violating election laws. Lee won the election, and the charges are now on hold while he serves his five-year term. Lee also has recently sparred with Cho over the chief justice's refusal to recommend another candidate for a Supreme Court vacancy after Lee rejected Cho’s first nominee. Under the constitution, the president appoints justices nominated by the chief justice, with the consent of the National Assembly.
The Korea Media and Communications Commission fined Google and Apple a total of 63.7 billion won (US$48 million) for effectively forcing app developers to use their in-app payment systems. The fines were the first under a 2021 amendment to the Telecommunications Business Act. The commission found that the companies ostensibly allowed outside payment systems but imposed fees and restrictions that made it commercially unattractive. (See the related Apple item in the Taiwan section below.)
The South Korean government decided not to challenge an arbitral award ordering it to pay the US hedge fund Elliott Management US$48 million plus interest, ending a dispute that began in 2018. Elliott, then a shareholder of Samsung C&T, claimed that the government improperly influenced the National Pension Service's vote on the company's 2015 merger with Cheil Industries. In a related case, the Seoul Central District Court dismissed a damages suit by Samsung C&T minority shareholders.
Special counsel prosecutors again asked the Seoul High Court to sentence former President Yoon Suk Yeol to death. Yoon was in court to appeal his conviction and life sentence for leading an insurrection by declaring martial law in December 2024. Prosecutors also sought a death sentence during Yoon’s first-instance trial. In other martial law-related litigation:
The Supreme Court upheld the eighteen-month prison sentence given to former presidential secretary Kang Gyu-gu for creating a false official document as part of an effort to normalize the martial law declaration.
The Seoul High Court upheld the conviction of former Presidential Security Service chief Park Jong-joon for obstructing investigators' January 2025 attempt to arrest Yoon at the presidential residence. However, the court reduced his sentence to three years from four.
The Seoul Central District Court acquitted two former army generals accused of playing key roles in an insurrection by meeting a retired intelligence commander to receive instructions hours before Yoon's martial law declaration. The court said prosecutors had not proven that they intended to subvert the constitution. It also acquitted six other former military officials.
South Korean police referred to prosecutors a man accused of posting 211 messages that spread false information about women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II, known as “comfort women.” It is the first case brought under a provision, in effect since June 11, that makes publicly spreading false information to defame the victims punishable by up to five years in prison.
The Suwon District Court ordered the detention of conservative commentator Ji Man-won, saying that he might flee or destroy evidence. Ji is accused of violating the Special Act on the May 18 Democratization Movement by posting about sixty articles that described citizens who joined the 1980 pro-democracy protests in Gwangju as North Korean soldiers.
Taiwan
The Legislative Yuan amended the Criminal Code (刑法) to allow the death penalty for drivers who kill someone while impaired by drugs within ten years of a previous conviction for drug-impaired driving, or deferred prosecution. The amendments also raise penalties for all drug-impaired driving, which the Criminal Code previously punished under the same provision as drunk driving. The opposition Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) and Taiwan People's Party used their majority to pass their own version. The Cabinet's version would have punished drug-impaired driving that causes a death with up to twelve years in prison.
Pakistan barred two major Taiwanese airlines, China Airlines and EVA Air, from its airspace on October 25, citing its “one-China policy,” which recognizes Beijing as the sole government of China. Three days later, Pakistan's civil aviation authority allowed the flights back in. Taiwan's Cabinet accused Pakistan of pandering to China at the expense of flight safety. The US State Department welcomed the reversal and said it opposes coercion by Beijing.
The Cabinet said it is drafting amendments to the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法) to penalize surveillance, harassment, and intimidation carried out in Taiwan on behalf of “external hostile forces.” The Cabinet spokesperson was responding to a question about Chinese pressure on Taiwanese to make political statements
Prosecutors in Taoyuan asked a court to detain a man accused of faking the voice of Puma Shen, (沈伯洋), the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) Taipei mayoral candidate, in a video. The video appears to depict Shen admitting to taking kickbacks from US arms purchases. Prosecutors said the suspect violated the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), which bars spreading deepfake audio or video to make a candidate lose.
The National Security Bureau was investigating alleged cyberattacks originating from China that targeted the websites used by Shen’s election campaign. Taiwan’s local government elections will be held on Nov. 28, 2026.
The Supreme Court ordered a retrial in the case of four former Democratic Progressive Party staffers who were convicted last year of spying for China. The court questioned the High Court’s finding that some information passed to Chinese intelligence was not secret because it mixed confidential and public information. The four men — who included a staffer in the office of then-Foreign Minister Joseph Wu — had received sentences ranging from four years to ten years in prison.
Taipei prosecutors indicted two army sergeants on charges of violating the National Security Act (國家安全法) and the anti-corruption statute for allegedly selling classified training material and colleagues' personal data to Chinese contacts.
The Cabinet and Judicial Yuan proposed amendments to the Juvenile Justice Act (少年事件處理法) that would let victims take part in proceedings in serious juvenile cases. Juveniles convicted of serious crimes would have to serve at least half their sentence before parole. The Cabinet added its own provision requiring parole reviews to consider the views of victims or their families. The parents of a student killed in a 2023 school stabbing in New Taipei had called for such changes.
The Fair Trade Commission suspended its investigation of Apple after the company committed to cut its standard App Store commission in Taiwan to 26 percent from 30 percent, effective October 31. The regulator had been investigating whether Apple's restrictions on app developers, including its commission on in-app purchases, violated the Fair Trade Act (公平交易法).
Taipei prosecutors indicted an elementary school teacher on charges of sexually assaulting or molesting thirty-eight boys since 2010 and making sexual recordings of them, and asked for a thirty-year sentence. The city's education department fired the teacher, barred him from teaching for life, and fined him NT$13.5 million (US$414,000).
The Legislative Yuan amended the Soil and Water Conservation Act (水土保持法) to raise fines for illegally developing or occupying hillsides and forests up to NT$100 million (US$3.1 million) when the violation causes a death.