U.S.-Asia Law Institute

Poverty is often the face of a woman. Rangita de Silva de Alwis, a member of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, hopes that this year’s meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women will help make women the face of anti-poverty solutions.

Taiwan’s recent general elections were accompanied by extensive attacks of online misinformation designed to confuse and disrupt the process. Authors Wen-Chen Chang and Yu-teng Lin argue that Taiwan’s response to these attacks embodies “civic constitutionalism” in action, with civil society organizations taking the lead to identify and correct the misinformation while the government played a supporting role.

The Japanese stock market enjoyed an impressive rally this year, with the Nikkei 225 Index gaining well over 20% and achieving its highest level in three decades. Is Japan (finally) back? Bruce Aronson writes that a lasting recovery will depend upon how deeply corporate governance reforms have taken root and what policies have been adopted to counter the drag of an aging society.

China’s newly approved Patriotic Education Law offers a good illustration of what the ruling Communist Party means when it promises to “govern the country according to the law,” writes Ruiping Ye. It means giving policy documents the status of legislation. It is yet another manifestation of the integration of the Party and the state under the current Party leadership.

If China’s Criminal Code could contain only one crime, some Chinese judges, lawyers, and legal scholars say that the crime they would keep is “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” or 寻衅滋事. Luo Jiajun writes that it is no exaggeration to say that this charge could be brought against almost anyone living in China today.