Whatever the Chinese Communist Party waxworks expected after the Hong Kong handover, the massive July 1, 2003 protest against proposed "national security" legislation was surely a warning about the limits of Hongkongers' tolerance of authoritarian rule. The proposed legislation was the Hong Kong government's response to Article 23 of its Basic Law, which requires the
En las últimas dos semanas he comenzado a referirme a mí mismo -medio en broma, medio en serio- como un abogado con mascarilla. Lo he hecho porque he estado empleando varias horas al día trabajando con empresas que desean comprar cubrebocas y otro equipo de protección personal (PPE, por sus siglas en inglés) en China,
Our international dispute resolution lawyers are involved in multiple cross border litigation matters hit hard by the coronavirus. By way of one example, depositions scheduled for Chinese witnesses are having to be cancelled for the following reasons (among others): The coronavirus is impacting pretty much everyone in China. Travel within China is impossible for some and
In August, in The Top 14 China Wild Cards/Future Risks, we listed what we saw as the top 14 risks for foreign companies that do business in or with China. We first listed what we saw as the top six risks "right now," and we then listed eight more risks we thought might rise to
Hello Macau, goodbye Hong Kong. This has been the main theme surrounding Chairman Xi Jinping’s visit to Macau to mark the 20th anniversary of the former Portuguese colony’s transfer of sovereignty to China. Besides sending a not-so-subtle message to “bad student” Hong Kong, Xi is “expected to announce new policies aimed at diversifying the casino
No sooner than President Trump signed the Hong Kong human rights and democracy act into law, China announced retaliatory measures, banning U.S. warships from Hong Kong and restricting the work of American NGOs. These responses were narrowly tailored—perhaps in part because China is wary of rocking the boat too much, in a way that could
A lawyer's job is to discern their clients' risks and help them avoid them. We are both trained and paid to be paranoid. Years ago, when I was in Tokyo on a particularly sensitive international law matter, I left my hotel room as I had done pretty much every day for the last 7-8 days and
Seven years ago, we blogged about how we were getting calls from people who had visited a brothel in China and then were being threatened by alleged police officers seeking money. See also this 2014 piece from the Wall Street Journal: Latest China Scam: I’ve Been Arrested in the Brothel Crackdown! Our post focused on
We Americans do not like foreign governments or their agents meddling in our domestic affairs, whether it is China, Russia, Iran, Syria, or some less reprehensible regime. We do not even like friendly foreign governments meddling in our affairs. I am not talking about traditional CIA/007 spies or agents who operate in the shadows, mainly
"It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there." Bob Dylan, from Not Dark Yet In the 1990s, I represented a number of international fishing and timber and mining companies that did business with Russia. This was not so long after the fall of the Soviet Union and there were a bunch of large Russian companies
