November 1 – November 7
Highlights: China enacts a law against cross-border corruption; courts in Hong Kong and Macau hand down long prison terms to pro-democracy figures Joshua Wong and Au Kam San under national security laws; Japan’s lower house approves reducing the consumption tax on food to 1 percent from 8 percent for two years; South Korea’s National Assembly approves a special counsel to investigate allegations that prosecutors fabricated criminal cases against President Lee Jae Myung; Taiwan’s prosecutors indict independent legislator Kao Chin Su-mei on charges of taking Chinese money to build an organization in Taiwan.
China
The National People’s Congress Standing Committee adopted an Anti-Cross-Border Corruption Law (反跨境腐败法) that requires Chinese companies doing business abroad to set up anti-corruption compliance units corresponding to their size, business, and risks. Li Xi, who heads the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, wrote in the People’s Daily that the law should help authorities track down fugitives, prevent flight, and recover illicit assets. After a first review in August, lawmakers revised the draft to require investigators to protect state secrets, trade secrets, and personal information they obtain.
The National People’s Congress Standing Committee began reviewing proposed amendments to the Criminal Procedure Law (刑事诉讼法) that would expressly prohibit presuming suspects’ guilt and limit use of “residential surveillance at a designated location” (RSDL) to national security and terrorism cases. RSDL allows police to hold suspects incommunicado outside regular detention facilities for up to six months.
Shen Chunyao, who heads the legislature’s Legislative Affairs Commission, said the draft targets abuses that seriously undermine judicial fairness, such as profit-driven law enforcement and the use of criminal investigations to intervene in economic disputes. The draft would require seized criminal proceeds to go to the state treasury rather than to the agencies handling a case.
It would also authorize countermeasures against what the draft calls improper foreign criminal jurisdiction and discriminatory restrictions on Chinese citizens and organizations.
China’s state planner, the National Development and Reform Commission, blocked the Japanese investor SoftBank’s US$5.4 billion purchase of the robotics business of the Swiss engineering group ABB, ABB said. The commission reviews foreign investments that may affect national security. China accounts for about 30 percent of ABB’s robotics business. A person familiar with the deal told Reuters that Chinese authorities were concerned about possible transfers of sensitive data to the United States and about SoftBank’s ties to OpenAI, in which it is a major investor. Bloomberg News reported that SoftBank and ABB were exploring options for carving the Chinese element out of the deal.
Prosecutors in Hubei Province indicted former Politburo member Ma Xingrui on bribery charges. According to state broadcaster CCTV, the charges span his career from 1999, when he was a senior executive of China’s main state-owned space company, through his appointments as Shenzhen mayor, Guangdong governor, Xinjiang party chief, and Politburo member. The Communist Party Central Committee ratified Ma’s expulsion from the party at its plenum in late October.
The Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection expelled Guo Yonghang, the former party chief of Guangzhou, and referred him for prosecution. The commission accused Guo of taking bribes in exchange for engineering contracts and land-use rights, accepting gifts of free luxury medical care, and interfering in judicial activities.
The Shenyang Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Liu Shaoyong, a former chairman of the state-owned China Eastern Airlines, to fourteen years in prison for taking more than 67.5 million yuan (US$10 million) in bribes from 2002 to 2023. The court said Liu used his posts at China Eastern and China Southern Airlines to help companies and individuals win contracts and route approvals. Liu received a lighter sentence because he confessed and disclosed bribes that investigators had not found.
The Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court accepted a defamation suit brought by the Wuhan city government, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences against the US state of Missouri and three of Missouri’s current and former attorneys general. The plaintiffs say that Missouri’s 2020 lawsuit seeking to hold Chinese parties liable for economic losses from the COVID-19 pandemic was malicious and spread false information. The Chinese plaintiffs seek a public apology and, according to the South China Morning Post, 356 billion yuan (US$53 billion) in damages. The Chinese parties declined to make an appearance in Missouri’s lawsuit and the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals awarded Missouri a $25 million judgment by default.
Hong Kong & Macau
The High Court sentenced activist Joshua Wong to ten years in prison after he pleaded guilty to conspiring with fellow activists to collude with foreign forces. Prosecutors said the two urged foreign governments in 2019 and 2020 to sanction Hong Kong and China, and lobbied for laws including the US Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. The judge found Wong’s offense was grave, meaning it carries a minimum term of ten years under the 2020 National Security Law. Wong had been a few months away from completing a four year, eight month term for subversion. He is now likely to remain in prison until 2036.
Macau’s Court of First Instance sentenced former lawmaker Au Kam San, 69, to twelve and a half years in prison for subversion, establishing links with groups outside Macau to endanger national security, and violating secrecy. It was Macau’s first known national security trial since the territory returned from Portuguese to Chinese rule in 1999. Macau enacted its national security law in 2009 and expanded it in 2023. Au, a longtime democracy campaigner who served nearly two decades in the legislature, was arrested in July 2025 and tried behind closed doors in September. Details of his alleged offense were not disclosed and a lawyer hired by his family was not allowed to see him.
Hong Kong police said they will add AI facial recognition to SmartView, their network of public surveillance cameras, as early as this month. Police will also connect the system to the security cameras of four private shopping malls. Officers will need approval from an inspector or a more senior officer to use the feature. Police said their legal team and the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data had found the mall connections lawful. Authorities plan to bring 60,000 cameras into SmartView by 2028, including cameras run by private operators and other government departments.
Hong Kong’s national security police arrested a 34-year-old man on suspicion of importing seditious publications for sale at a shop that raises money for a group supporting people jailed in politically connected cases. The arrest followed a Customs seizure of more than sixty books shipped to the shop from Taiwan. Customs said it acted under rules put in place in March that allow officers to seize items suspected of seditious intention without making an arrest.
A Legislative Council subcommittee began examining eight pieces of subsidiary legislation that would limit searches of land records to nine specified purposes, which do not include news reporting. Journalists who want to access the records would have to apply on public-interest grounds and wait for the land registrar’s decision. Officials said a refusal could be challenged only through judicial review. Permanent Secretary for Development Doris Ho said the system was not designed to facilitate investigative reporting. Privacy Commissioner Ada Chung backed the limits, saying her office had received twenty complaints in five years about misuse of land records, including the doxxing of property owners.
The Legislative Council passed the Inland Revenue (Amendment) Bill 2026, which requires crypto-asset service providers to collect users’ transaction data beginning next year. The Inland Revenue Department will share the data with partner jurisdictions starting in 2028 to help detect cross-border tax evasion. The city has exchanged information on ordinary financial accounts with other jurisdictions since 2018.
Secretary for Security Chris Tang told lawmakers that a joint task force of police, the Independent Commission Against Corruption, and the Competition Commission will use surveillance, undercover operations, and informants to detect bid-rigging in building maintenance projects. Chief Executive John Lee promised last week to make such bid-rigging a crime after an independent inquiry found that government regulators share responsibility for a 2025 highrise fire that killed 168 people. Secretary for Justice Paul Lam said lawmakers are expected to pass the legislation around April 2027.
UNIDROIT, the Rome-based intergovernmental organization that drafts model rules for private and commercial law, opened an Asia-Pacific liaison office in Hong Kong. The Department of Justice said it is the organization’s first office outside Rome in its hundred-year history and was secured with the central government’s support.
Japan
The House of Representatives passed a bill that would cut the consumption tax on food and beverages to 1 percent from 8 percent for two years starting in April. The bill also would create an income-linked cash benefit for lower earners. It would be the first cut in the consumption tax since its introduction in 1989. The lower house debate left unclear how the government will make up for an estimated 10 trillion yen (US$63 billion) in lost revenue over the two years. The bill now goes to the House of Councillors, the upper house, where the ruling coalition lacks a majority.
A new system for refunding the consumption tax to foreign tourists took effect on November 1. Travelers can obtain a refund when they leave Japan if their purchases are confirmed. Under the previous system, introduced in 1952, travelers paid no tax at the register upon presenting their passport. The change is intended to ensure foreign visitors do not reselling the goods inside Japan instead of taking them abroad.
The National Disaster Management Agency began operating as the government’s disaster-response command center, including a possible earthquake under Tokyo or an eruption of Mount Fuji. The agency replaces the Cabinet Office’s disaster management division. The agency’s minister may issue recommendations to other government bodies, which must respect them.
The National Police Agency said it will share with 807 financial institutions a list of bank accounts that police have found receiving money from fraud victims. The institutions will report customers who send money to those accounts, so that local police can contact them quickly and prevent further losses. Losses from telephone, investment, and other so-called special fraud reached 261 billion yen (US$1.6 billion) from January through September.
The National Police Agency said it worked with Google to disable servers controlling malware that a Chinese manufacturer secretly built into Android TV devices sold around the world. Google found that the malware turned more than 1.3 million devices into “residential proxies,” which route cyberattacks through ordinary households’ internet connections. Such proxies were used in at least 737 fraudulent online banking transfers in Japan last year.
The Supreme Court upheld film director Hideo Sakaki’s eight-year prison sentence for sexually assaulting two actresses under the pretext of giving them acting lessons in 2015 and 2016. Media reports about Sakaki in 2022 set off a wave of sexual misconduct allegations in Japan’s film industry.
Russian President Vladimir Putin placed the Russian assets of Japan Tobacco under the temporary management of a Russian company. Under a system Russia created in 2023 in response to Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine, the owner keeps title to such assets but loses control of them. Japan protested and demanded that Russia immediately withdraw the measure. Japan-Russia relations have become increasingly tense since Japan joined Western countries in sanctioning Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. In August, Putin visited an island claimed by Japan, and in October Russian authorities detained a Japanese journalist on spy charges.
Koreas
The National Assembly passed a bill appointing a special counsel to investigate allegations that prosecutors under former President Yoon Suk Yeol fabricated evidence or induced false testimony against President Lee Jae Myung and others. The ruling Democratic Party voted 167 to 1 for the bill after the opposition People Power Party ended a filibuster and boycotted the vote. The special counsel will examine twelve indictments, six of them against Lee on charges dating from his time as mayor of Seongnam and governor of Gyeonggi Province. Lee’s trials in those cases were suspended when he took office in 2025 because the constitution exempts a sitting president from prosecution except for insurrection or treason. The People Power Party says the bill is meant to shield Lee. The final version dropped a clause that would have empowered the special counsel to cancel indictments.
The Seoul High Court upheld former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s conviction and suspended eighteen-month prison sentence for making false statements during his 2022 presidential campaign. If the conviction becomes final, the People Power Party will have to return 39.7 billion won (US$30 million) that the state reimbursed to his campaign. The election law requires repayment when a candidate is sentenced to prison or fined at least 1 million won for election law violations. Yoon’s lawyers said they will appeal to the Supreme Court.
A special counsel searched the headquarters of the National Election Commission, the independent body that runs South Korea’s elections, over allegations that it gave a manufacturer of ballot printers advance information about a tender. Investigators also searched commission offices after finding falsified or altered voting logs from at least forty polling stations in the June local elections. The investigation began after many polling stations experienced ballot shortages during that election.
The Seoul Administrative Court suspended a 201.1 billion won (US$150 million) fine that the Personal Information Protection Commission imposed on the US-based online retailer Coupang for collecting and using the online activity records of about eleven million users without legal grounds. A day earlier, the court refused to suspend a separate 423.5 billion won (US$315 million) fine over a massive 2025 data breach. Coupang’s Korean American founder has won support among US Republican congressmen, who allege that South Korea is discriminating against a US company.
The Financial Services Commission imposed a combined 370 billion won (US$276 million) in penalties on seven banks and six securities firms for failing to provide investors with all necessary information about equity-linked securities tied to Hong Kong’s H Index. The H Index tracks mainland Chinese companies listed in Hong Kong. Buyers of the Hong Kong-linked securities suffered heavy losses when the index plunged in early 2024. The penalties are far smaller than the 1.4 trillion won first proposed for five of the banks, which had already compensated customers for part of their losses.
The Seoul High Court revoked the bail of Unification Church leader Han Hak-ja, 83, after she left a designated hospital without permission to visit a church compound. Han was sentenced to two years in prison for bribing former first lady Kim Keon Hee and a People Power Party lawmaker.
The Standing Committee of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly recalled one of its two vice chairmen and amended the country’s construction and precious metals management laws, state media reported without giving details. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said the official removed may be Ri Son Gwon, a former foreign minister, because the other vice chairman presided over the meeting.
Taiwan
The Taiwan High Prosecutors Office indicted independent legislator Kao Chin Su-mei (高金素梅) and three of her aides on charges of violating the National Security Act (國家安全法) and taking bribes. Prosecutors allege that from 2005 to 2016 the four brought about NT$170 million (US$5.2 million) from China into Taiwan to build an organization on behalf of Chinese government bodies. The indictment alleges that 61-year-old Kao, who has been a legislator since 2002, followed Chinese Communist Party instructions when she spoke in the legislature on arms purchases, cross-strait relations, diplomacy, and defense. Prosecutors asked for prison terms of fourteen years for Kao and fifteen years for her aide Chang Chun-chieh (張俊傑).
Chang, who had been released on bail in a separate case, removed his electronic monitoring bracelet in September. Taipei prosecutors say he left Keelung on a fishing boat on October 28 and was transferred to a Chinese fishing vessel near the median line of the Taiwan Strait.
Kaohsiung prosecutors accused retired Major General Tsang You-hsia (臧幼俠) of helping China interfere in Taiwan’s November 28 local elections and sought his detention under the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法). Prosecutors say Tsang arranged trips to China for Taiwanese voters, paid for by Chinese authorities through the Whampoa Military Academy Alumni Association, which the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department directs. Prosecutors also say Tsang held banquets this year at which he urged guests not to vote for supporters of Taiwan independence. A court rejected the detention request and released Tsang on bail of NT$700,000 (US$21,000). In 2024, Tsang’s military pension was cut after he stood for China’s national anthem at an event in Hong Kong.
Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) refused to countersign an amendment to the Senior Citizens Welfare Act (老人福利法) that would require the central government to pay the National Health Insurance premiums for an estimated 80 percent of persons ages 65 and older. The Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party used their legislative majority to pass the amendment in October. The Cabinet said the annual cost of NT$40 billion (US$1.2 billion) would infringe on its constitutional authority over budgeting and divert money from long-term care and other welfare programs.
Cho’s refusal brings to nine the number of bills passed by the legislature that have been blocked from taking effect because the premier has not signed them. The Constitution does not give the premier the power to veto legislation, and Cho is the first premier to refuse to sign duly approved legislation.
The Legislative Yuan’s Economics Committee held a public hearing on proposed amendments to the Trade Act (貿易法) that would add certain chips, wafer materials, and chipmaking equipment to Taiwan’s export control list. The amendments would also raise the maximum prison term for illegal exports, including transshipments through third countries, to ten years from five. Under a reciprocal trade agreement signed with the United States in February, Taiwan committed to help keep advanced semiconductors from reaching China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
Justice Minister Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) told lawmakers that the government is drafting amendments to the Anti-Infiltration Act to include actions such as physical attacks, threats, or invasion of privacy that aim at transnational repression. Such actions are now prosecuted as ordinary crimes, which generally carry up to five years in prison. The Mainland Affairs Council said China has targeted 131 Taiwanese since 2005.
The Supreme Administrative Court upheld a lower court order requiring the Central Election Commission to list a Hualien County councilor as a candidate in the November 28 local elections. The commission had barred him because he failed to serve a three-month sentence for drunk driving. The Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) bars candidates with unserved prison sentences, but a June amendment exempts sentences that can be converted to community service. The lower court held that the exemption applies even if a candidate has not asked prosecutors for the conversion.