HRIC Weekly Brief
March 18, 2026
Top News 头条
Last week in Hong Kong, in the trial of imprisoned democracy advocates Lee Cheuk-yan, Chow Hang-tung, and the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the defense delivered arguments in favor of early acquittal on grounds the prosecution had failed to establish a prima facie case that they had “incited subversion” under the Beijing-imposed national security law.
Chow Hang-tung, representing herself, delivered a statement not only arguing against the prosecution’s interpretation of formerly protected speech, but also addressing complex constitutional and civil rights issues. (Read the full text here.) Chow stated that the Chinese constitution “certainly is applicable to Hong Kong, but that does not mean it can be directly implemented as law” and called it a matter of “direct effect,” referring to a legal principle allowing a law to be directly enforced in a local jurisdiction. She argued that the prosecution was attempting to turn a remarkably complex issue into an open-and-shut case that mistakenly focused on defining a slogan that was “protected by Hong Kong’s freedom of expression laws at the time it was made.”
Despite these arguments, the three national security judges ruled that the prosecution had, in fact, established a prima facie case and that the trial would continue. As such, the defense began their arguments on March 17, as Lee Cheuk-yan took the stand.
Law & Policy 法律与政策
China approves ‘ethnic unity’ law denounced by rights groups: The proposed law was officially approved on March 12. It formalizes policies to promote Mandarin as the “national common language” in education, official business and public places. The law also states that it could be applied outside China’s borders.
Related: China’s “Ethnic Unity Law” Begins with Removal of Uyghur from Hotan Airport Sign. The law’s implementation is already visible in the Uyghur homeland, where the use of the Uyghur language in public spaces has increasingly been restricted in recent years.
Related: UN human rights chief concerned by China’s ‘ethnic unity’ law. Volker Turk stated: “This [law] risks entrenching assimilationist policies in statute, restricting minority-language education, and limiting free practice of religion and culture. Its provisions could overly restrict freedoms of expression, belief and assembly and penalise peaceful exercise of minority rights generally.”
NPC 2026: A First Look at China’s New Environmental Code: The new Environmental Code is intended to partially codify and update existing laws and regulations, and is only China’s second formal legal code, after the 2020 Civil Code.
NPC 2026: Documents and Votes: Documents are available in Chinese only unless otherwise noted.
Cyber Security & Digital Rights 网络安全与数字权利
Teacher Li on X/Twitter: Rumors are circulating online that the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin, China, recently experienced a significant data breach, but there has been no official response.
Mass Ban of Feminist Accounts on Eve of March 8 International Women’s Day: Many bloggers and commentators criticized the bans, which formed a glaring contrast to official and state-owned media coverage. Some noted that amid the Cyberspace Administration of China’s ongoing campaign to “clean up” content purportedly “promoting extreme feminism and inciting gender antagonism,” the red lines seem to be shifting.
X suspends 800m accounts in one year amid ‘massive’ scale of manipulation attempts: The social media company reported that it was continually fighting state-backed attempts to manipulate the algorithm or flood the platform with spam, with Russia the most prolific state actor, followed by Iran and China.
Lukasz Olejnik on X/Twitter: Chinese cybersecurity company Qihoo 360 reportedly leaked a private SSL certificate key in the installer for their new AI product, 360安全龙虾 (Security Claw), which could allow anyone to “impersonate 360’s servers, silently intercept user traffic, forge a login page that looks completely legitimate, or possibly take over the AI agent altogether.”
ByteDance Gains Access to Advanced Nvidia AI Chips Through Overseas Cloud Plans: The move comes amid ongoing U.S. export restrictions that prevent Nvidia from selling its most advanced AI chips directly to China. To bypass these limits, Chinese tech firms have increasingly sought computing power through data centers and cloud partners located in third countries.
Huawei Is Betting on the Future with HarmonyOS: Huawei’s HarmonyOS is positioning itself as the operating system through which billions of users could one day interact with Chinese AI worldwide.
Apple cuts China App Store commission fees after government pressure: Following discussions with the Chinese authorities, the contents of which have not been disclosed, Apple announced that it would lower its fees from 30% to 25%, a boon for Chinese app developers and operators of “super apps” such as Tencent and ByteDance.
‘We’re family’: AI agent ‘lobster fever’ grips China despite risks: AI agent tool OpenClaw, created in November by an Austrian coder, differs from bots like ChatGPT because it is given greater access and can execute life tasks such as sending emails, organizing files or even booking flight tickets. It has become wildly popular in China, despite the authorities’ warnings against it.
Diaspora Community & Transnational Repression 海外社群和跨国镇压
883 Town Halls in the Czech Republic, 765 in France, Belgium, Luxembourg raised Tibetan flag on 67th Tibet uprising day: These gestures send a clear message that the international community continues to stand with the Tibetan people in their pursuit of justice, freedom, and the preservation of their culture.
Beijing Targets Japan’s Uyghur Lawmaker in Racist Attack: China’s state-owned media published articles targeting Ms. Arfiya Eri, Japan’s Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs and the first person of Uyghur descent elected to any national parliament worldwide, due to her Uyghur ethnicity.
Human Rights Defenders & Civil Society 人权捍卫者与公民社会
Counterespionage thriller is first Chinese movie to get backing of intelligence agency: Zhang Yimou’s “Scare Out” is the first motion picture to be endorsed by China’s Ministry of State Security. The film is “presented as ‘led and created’ by the MSS.”
Hong Kong woman, 21, charged over 2019 protests after returning from Australia: Ami Chan allegedly carried two laser pointers and three bottles of spray paint on September 8, 2019. Although she was arrested in 2019 and the government did not prosecute her at that time, she now faces one count of “possession of an offensive weapon in public” and another of “possessing anything with intent to destroy or damage property.”
Ex-education chief said registration not needed for interest classes, independent bookstore owner testifies in court: Pong Yat-ming is standing trial for allegedly managing an unregistered school after he held a Spanish course at his bookstore, Book Punch, in April last year.
China’s Reach & Internal Control 中国: 内控与外扩
The normalization of Uyghur repression in the name of ’social governance’ in China: “The social governance system, presented as rational, benevolent, and successful in Chinese official discourse, is precisely engineered to deprive people of the ability to organize themselves, express their identity, and sustain their cultural life, thereby quietly normalizing repression in society.”
The Great Broadcasting Retreat: In China, rapid contraction of local television and radio under a barrage of cost-cutting directives from the central government has been part of a broader rebuilding of China’s media infrastructure that the China Media Project has called “Centralization+.”
Chinese Authorities Force Uyghur Villagers to Eat and Check Homes During Ramadan: Footage from the southern region of the Uyghur homeland appears to show Chinese authorities going door to door and gathering Uyghur villagers, forcing them to eat and drink during daylight hours in a direct violation of the Ramadan fast.
International Responses 国际反应
In commemoration of the “March 10th” incident in Tibet, 20 Australian senators proposed a motion condemning the Chinese Communist Party’s oppression of Tibet and calling for the resumption of dialogue between Tibet and China: The motion also urged the Chinese Communist Party to restart dialogue with the Dalai Lama’s representatives without preconditions in order to achieve long-term peace and freedom in Tibet.