分类： politics

On Monday, North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) confirmed that the country carried out a second test-launch of ballistic missiles fitted with cluster bomb warheads earlier this weekend — a move widely interpreted as a deliberate demonstration of Pyongyang’s advancing efforts to develop weaponry capable of piercing joint United States and South Korean defense systems. The announcement aligns with multiple launch detections by South Korean, Japanese, and U.S. military authorities that tracked projectiles launched off North Korea’s eastern coast on Sunday.

Released KCNA photographs captured North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his teenage daughter Kim Ju Ae, both clad in matching black leather jackets, observing the test from a coastal observation post as the rocket arced over the water, leaving a thick trail of gray smoke in its wake. In recent weeks, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service has assessed that the young daughter, who has appeared alongside Kim at multiple high-profile military events, is being positioned as Kim Jong Un’s eventual successor.

According to KCNA’s official account, Kim personally oversaw the launch of five upgraded Hwasong-11 Ra surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, each armed with a combination of cluster bomb warheads and fragmentation mine warheads. All missiles successfully struck a pre-designated island target, and Kim expressed full satisfaction with the results, noting that the test carried profound military significance for strengthening North Korea’s high-density strike capabilities.

This test marks the second cluster warhead-equipped ballistic missile launch North Korea has carried out this month. Earlier tests involved the Hwasong-11 Ka variant, which Pyongyang claimed is capable of turning a 6.5 to 7-hectare area (equivalent to 16 to 17.2 acres) into ash.

While North Korea has tested cluster munitions in the past, regional defense analysts point to the ongoing Iran-Israel conflict as a key catalyst for Pyongyang’s recent push to showcase its existing cluster stockpiles and accelerate development of more advanced designs. The conflict has thrust the destructive capacity of cluster weapons into the global spotlight: Israel has accused Iran of deploying these munitions to overwhelm its overstretched air defense networks. Cluster warheads operate by detonating at high altitude, scattering dozens of small submunitions across a wide geographic area — a design that makes them extremely difficult to intercept with traditional missile defense systems.

Globally, more than 120 nations have ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions, an international treaty that bans the production, stockpiling, and use of these weapons. Notably, North Korea, Iran, Israel, and the United States are not signatories to the agreement.

North Korea has ramped up its development of nuclear arsenals and advanced conventional weapons since high-profile nuclear diplomacy between Kim Jong Un and then-U.S. President Donald Trump collapsed in 2019. Pyongyang’s current military modernization priorities include multi-warhead nuclear missiles, hypersonic glide vehicles, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles — all systems that would drastically improve North Korea’s ability to defeat layered U.S. and South Korean missile defenses.

In recent months, Trump has repeatedly signaled his interest in reviving diplomatic talks with Kim, and Kim Jong Un has left the door open for dialogue with the former president, while insisting that Washington must drop its demand for North Korean nuclear disarmament as a precondition for any negotiations. Against this backdrop, Trump is scheduled to travel to Beijing in May for a rescheduled summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Many regional observers argue that North Korea’s recent string of missile tests is a calculated strategy to strengthen its negotiating position ahead of any potential diplomatic opening that could emerge from the U.S.-China summit.

### Hamas Rejects US-Backed Disarmament Plan Amid Unresolved Ceasefire Violations

Palestinian militant group Hamas has flatly rejected a US-backed disarmament proposal put forward by the Board of Peace, framing the initiative as a deliberate trap designed to sow internal conflict and destabilize Palestinian governance in the Gaza Strip. Multiple Palestinian sources with direct knowledge of the closed-door Cairo talks shared details of the negotiations with Middle East Eye, outlining the group’s deep-seated opposition to the framework presented earlier this month.

From Hamas’ perspective, the proposal would leave Gaza’s Palestinian population completely defenseless while enabling Israeli-aligned armed gangs to operate unimpeded across the enclave, creating widespread chaos and disorder. A senior Gaza-based source close to the group confirmed the outright rejection, noting that opposition runs particularly strong within Hamas’ military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, which has labeled any disarmament agreement as nothing less than collective suicide. “They know that giving up their weapons is not an option and will not happen,” the source emphasized.

The plan was formally delivered to Hamas delegates by Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s High Representative for Gaza, who centered the entire proposal on coercing Hamas into relinquishing its weapons arsenal. Beyond the disarmament demand, Hamas has also decried a second unacceptable provision that would remove 20,000 sitting civil servants – nearly the entire administrative workforce that keeps basic services running across Gaza – from their positions. The source called the mass dismissal plan a catastrophic mistake, noting that these workers hold the cumulative expertise needed to address Gaza’s ongoing humanitarian and governance challenges, and replacing them en masse is fundamentally illogical.

A core non-negotiable demand from Hamas is that Israel must first fully comply with all obligations laid out in the first phase of the October 2023 US-brokered ceasefire before any talks on further steps, including disarmament, can begin. That ceasefire was negotiated to end a two-year Israeli military campaign that has claimed the lives of roughly 72,000 Palestinians and pushed Gaza’s 2.3 million residents into widespread mass starvation. Under the terms of the truce, Israel was required to lift all restrictions on humanitarian aid entry, allowing up to 600 trucks of food, fuel, medical equipment, shelter materials and commercial goods to enter the enclave daily.

To date, Israel has failed to meet these requirements, maintaining harsh limits on aid deliveries that have left Gaza’s catastrophic humanitarian situation largely unchanged. Even after the ceasefire took effect, Israeli forces have killed more than 700 Palestinians in ongoing incursions and attacks across the Strip. When Hamas presented these demands to Mladenov during negotiations, the envoy offered no substantive commitments or responses to address Palestinian concerns.

Talks over the proposal have stretched on for two weeks, with multiple sessions marked by sharp tensions. Mladenov presented the plan as a non-negotiable take-it-or-leave-it offer to the Hamas delegation in Cairo, and at one point issued a 48-hour ultimatum: accept the terms or face a resumption of full-scale Israeli military operations. In a subsequent meeting, Mladenov was joined by unexpected high-level US officials, including Major General Jasper Jeffers, commander of the International Stabilisation Force, and senior US advisor Aryeh Lightstone. The unannounced addition of the US delegation was not coordinated in advance with Hamas, led by senior leader Khalil al-Hayya, and was viewed as an additional layer of pressure to force concessions, ultimately leading to a breakdown in talks with no agreement reached.

Egypt, one of the key mediators in the process, has also pushed Hamas to accept the proposal, despite internal concerns that the plan does not align with either Palestinian or Egyptian national interests. Sources note that Egyptian leadership is reluctant to publicly oppose or upset the US administration. In recent days, external pressure has grown to convince Hamas to grant preliminary approval for the proposal before hashing out specific details later, according to reporting from Asharq Al-Awsat. A revised version of the plan has recently been circulated that proposes moving to second-phase talks – which include disarmament – once Israel begins implementing its first-phase ceasefire obligations.

At present, it remains unclear whether Hamas will agree to the revised framework. Hamas continues to stand firm in its demand for legally binding, concrete guarantees that Israel will fully implement all first-phase ceasefire commitments before any discussions of further negotiations begin.

Against the backdrop of a global push to cultivate new economic growth drivers and accelerate technological transformation, China’s top intellectual property regulatory body is ramping up targeted protection measures for intellectual property (IP) in fast-growing emerging sectors ranging from artificial intelligence to big data, as part of the country’s broader strategic framework to advance the development of new quality productive forces. This announcement was made by Shen Changyu, Commissioner of the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), in an exclusive interview with China Daily, delivered ahead of World Intellectual Property Day, which falls annually on April 26.

Shen’s comments come just as the country prepares to launch its annual National Intellectual Property Publicity Week, a seven-day event designed to showcase China’s nationwide IP development achievements and raise public awareness of IP rights.

As global technological revolutions and industrial upgrading gain momentum, Shen explained that cutting-edge emerging technologies including AI, integrated circuits, biomedicine, quantum technology, 6G communications, and brain-computer interfaces are fundamentally reshaping global economic structures. This rapid evolution has created new, unmet requirements for robust, adaptive IP protection frameworks that can keep pace with innovation.

According to Shen, CNIPA has already rolled out a series of targeted policy measures over recent years that have delivered tangible progress toward fostering innovation and driving high-quality economic growth. Key priorities moving forward include continued refinement of IP-related legal frameworks, acceleration of trademark and patent examination workflows, and optimization of support services to facilitate IP commercialization across all emerging technology fields.

Official 2025 data underscores the rapid growth of innovation in these key sectors. Among China’s entire stock of valid invention patents, computer technology and medical technology recorded the fastest year-over-year growth rates, with the total volume of AI-related patents held in China now ranking first globally. By the end of 2025, the number of new trademark registrations linked to AI and other emerging sectors reached 324,300, pushing the total number of valid trademarks in these fields to 4.39 million — a 5.94 percent increase from 2024.

“These numbers reflect sustained market enthusiasm for trademark development in emerging areas, and demonstrate both growing innovation vitality across China’s tech ecosystem and rising awareness of trademark protection among technology enterprises,” Shen noted.

To improve both the quality and efficiency of IP examination processes, CNIPA has streamlined administrative procedures and updated core regulatory rules multiple times. Notably, the country’s patent examination guidelines have undergone three revisions — in 2019, 2023, and most recently 2025 — specifically to address the unique challenges posed by AI-related patent applications.

“The 2025 revision introduces a dedicated standalone section for artificial intelligence and big data for the first time, with a strong emphasis on integrating ethical oversight into the examination process,” Shen explained. “It clarifies that all core technical applications must align with existing legal standards, social morality, and public interest, so we can build strong safety guardrails that support the healthy development of the AI sector.”

CNIPA is also actively involved in updating higher-level national legislation to address new industry needs. The agency is contributing to revisions of China’s Trademark Law and the Integrated Circuit Layout Design Protection Regulation, efforts designed to respond to public concerns and create clear legal support for the development and protection of core domestic technologies. Last year, the draft Trademark Law revision completed its first reading before the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislative body. The draft targets longstanding issues such as malicious trademark registration and trademark misuse, directly addressing the urgent need for stronger protection of AI-driven innovation, according to Shen.

In a further practical adjustment to accommodate new sectors, CNIPA has added 890 standardized goods and service classification items specifically for big data, AI, and other emerging industries. “This reform resolves pressing on-the-ground problems, including the lack of corresponding classification categories for trademark registration in new fields and unclear boundaries for IP protection,” Shen said. “By cutting branding costs for businesses and reducing the risk of IP infringement, this move ultimately optimizes both the innovation and business environment, providing solid IP support for the healthy, orderly growth of strategic emerging and future-focused industries.”

These efficiency-focused reforms have already delivered measurable results. In 2025, China’s average trademark examination period held steady at four months, while the average invention patent review period was cut to 15 months. Both examination timelines are the fastest of any major global economy for IP review processes of this scale, Shen added.

Commissioner Shen also highlighted the critical economic role of IP commercialization, noting that it serves as the key bridge between raw innovation and real-world industrial application, making it a core priority for developing new quality productive forces. In 2025 alone, CNIPA accredited 65 new specialized centers dedicated to supporting IP commercialization, 48 of which focus specifically on emerging industries. These centers are designed to promote synergistic development between IP creation and industrial growth.

Over the course of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), CNIPA delivered specialized public IP services — including IP search and analysis, industry navigation, infringement early warning, overseas IP rights protection, and targeted training — to more than 50,000 domestic enterprises across the country.

On the international stage, China has actively pursued multilateral and bilateral exchanges and cooperation on emerging IP governance issues. By working closely with the World Intellectual Property Organization and foreign IP offices to coordinate global AI governance frameworks, China aims to ensure its perspective is heard and its influence expands in the global IP landscape, Shen said.

Looking ahead to the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030), Shen confirmed that CNIPA will continue to center its work on addressing core innovation challenges in emerging fields. The agency will continuously refine IP-related legal and regulatory frameworks while proactively tracking evolving global industry trends to keep pace with rapid technological change.

### Background: The Gao Brothers’ Decades of Provocative Artistic Practice
Gao Zhen and Gao Qiang, the sibling contemporary art duo, first rose to public attention in China’s domestic art circle during the 1990s and early 2000s, eventually building a global reputation for bold, satirical works that challenge the political legacy of their home country. For the brothers, the legacy of Mao Zedong – founder of the People’s Republic of China, whose rule oversaw decades of traumatic upheaval including the Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution that killed tens of millions – has been a persistent thematic core. Their own family bore direct trauma from that era: their father was labeled a class enemy during the Cultural Revolution and detained in an extrajudicial facility, a personal grievance that has shaped their creative output.

Among their most controversial works are two pieces created for exhibition in 2009: *The Execution of Christ*, a bronze sculpture that depicts Jesus Christ at gunpoint, with every member of the firing squad sculpted in the likeness of Mao, and *Mao’s Guilt*, a life-sized statue of the former leader kneeling in a pose of supposed contrition. For most of their decades-long career, these works did not draw severe official punishment. That landscape shifted dramatically after 2012, when Xi Jinping took power and began a widespread contraction of space for independent creative expression across China’s cultural sectors. In 2021, Beijing strengthened criminal statutes banning insult to the country’s “revolutionary heroes and martyrs,” a category that places Mao above all other figures as an untouchable symbol of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s legitimacy. Soon after the amendment passed, Gao Zhen – who by that point had already relocated to New York as a permanent resident, leaving his brother based in China – left the country for the U.S. in 2022.

### The 2024 Arrest and Secret Trial
Fifteen years after the controversial sculptures were first exhibited, the long-simmering legal reckoning arrived. While visiting family in Beijing in mid-2024, 69-year-old Gao Zhen was taken into custody directly from his suburban studio. In the immediate aftermath of his arrest, Chinese authorities seized all of his stored artworks and imposed an exit ban on his wife and 7-year-old son, barring them from leaving the country. Last month, Gao was tried behind closed doors on charges of “insulting revolutionary heroes and martyrs” – a criminal offense that carries a maximum penalty of three years imprisonment.

The trial has received almost no uncensored coverage within China, where most domestic state-aligned media have framed Gao as a fraud who “caters to Western political interests” by producing work that defames revered national figures. But Gao Qiang, the younger brother who remains connected to the case, says the trial sends an unambiguous warning to all creators in China and beyond. “Even if a work was made 15 years ago, it can still be turned into a crime if today’s political climate changes,” he told the BBC in an interview, adding that the prosecution of his brother is part of a broad, accelerating crackdown on dissident expression that touches visual arts, cinema, music, literature and digital online content.

China’s central government has not issued any public comment on Gao’s case or the trial. But independent China analysts say the case exposes a growing pattern of increasingly extreme political control by the CCP, which now polices expression both retroactively – prosecuting work created years or decades earlier under new legal standards – and transnationally, targeting creators even when they reside outside of China’s borders.

### Broader Context: The Deepening Crackdown on Creative Dissent
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ian Johnson, who has spent decades documenting political repression in China, argues that the current era represents “probably the darkest period of time in decades” for artistic and expressive freedom under CCP rule. “In the half-century since the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, this is the most prolonged crackdown that we’ve seen – far eclipsing the period after the Tiananmen massacre in 1989,” Johnson notes, adding that the CCP is now less willing than ever to tolerate even mild criticism of its top leaders.

Many observers link the CCP’s growing boldness in cracking down on dissent to shifting global political norms. As democratic standards erode across much of the world, analysts say Beijing has calculated that it can pursue aggressive repression without meaningful pushback from Western nations that have increasingly stepped back from defending global human rights standards. This month, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights joined a growing coalition of international advocacy groups to call for Gao’s immediate release, noting that his case “raises concerns with regard to retroactive application of criminal law and use of criminal sanctions to punish artistic expression.”

Beyond threats to expressive freedom, grave concerns have emerged over Gao Zhen’s physical health while in custody. Gao lives with multiple chronic conditions, including lumbar spine disease, arthritis, degenerative eye problems, and chronic urticaria, an inflammatory skin condition that causes persistent painful rashes. According to Gao Qiang, his brother has met with his legal counsel while confined to a wheelchair on multiple occasions, has frequently been too unwell to get out of bed, and has shown visible signs of malnutrition. Repeated requests from his legal team to grant him medical bail have all been rejected by authorities, leaving his younger brother warning that the risks to his life are “grave.”

For the CCP, the sensitivity around criticism of Mao stems from the ideological foundations of the party’s rule. While the party officially acknowledges some of Mao’s mistakes, it maintains his status as a sacred founding figure, and any public challenge to his legacy is seen as an implicit challenge to the CCP’s own right to rule. That dynamic has led to a steady stream of artists, writers and activists being targeted for violating unwritten rules around discussing national leaders: high-profile cases include Ai Weiwei, the internationally renowned artist detained on “economic crime” charges in 2011 after voicing support for pro-democracy protests, and Liu Xiaobo, a human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who died in custody in 2017 after being imprisoned for organizing a pro-democracy manifesto.

In recent years, the CCP’s dragnet for dissident expression has expanded far beyond China’s own borders. “Artists and writers have long been in the Chinese government’s crosshairs – but the authorities are now extending that reach beyond physical borders,” explains Sophie Richardson, spokesperson for the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders. Beyond punitive measures like exit bans for family members of exiled creators, Richardson says Beijing now regularly pressures foreign cultural institutions to censor works critical of the CCP, part of a global campaign to curtail independent artistic expression.

### The Unprecedented Nature of Gao’s Case
Gao Zhen’s prosecution is notable even in the context of the CCP’s ongoing crackdown because of its retroactive application: the works in question were created and exhibited 15 years ago, years before the strengthened legal statute under which he is now prosecuted. What is more, observers note that Gao never directly called for the overthrow of the CCP or openly criticized current leader Xi Jinping, placing him outside the category of “classic dissidents.”

“Even if he’s not a classic dissident, the Party is now so sensitive toward history that it felt it had to detain and try him,” Johnson explains.

That growing boldness is felt acutely by exiled dissident artists already living outside China. Badiucao, a Shanghai-born artist based in Melbourne who has built a global reputation for works critical of the CCP and Xi Jinping, says the arrest of Gao Zhen demonstrates that the CCP no longer hesitates to wield power openly even when it draws international attention. “It is really determined to wield power without hesitation, compared with old times,” he says, adding that the shift is rooted in global political changes. “I do not feel safe every day, because now I know the Chinese government do not care about international reputation anymore.”

Beijing’s decision to hold Gao’s trial entirely behind closed doors, barring even family members and foreign diplomats from attending, exposes the regime’s discomfort with public scrutiny, according to Gao Qiang. “If exposed to public view, the legal weakness, political vindictiveness, and symbolic nature of the prosecution would become impossible to hide,” he says. Badiucao echoes that analysis, noting that an open trial would paradoxically bring global attention to the very works Beijing is trying to suppress: “That’s the paradox when you’re trying an artist. Because at the end of the day, the reason why we create art is we want it spreading one way or another. A public trial is almost like a national or international show in MoMA: now the whole world will know which work is particularly offensive to what leader.”

Despite Beijing’s efforts to sidelined the case, Gao Qiang is calling on the global community to keep attention on his brother’s prosecution. “This is about far more than the fate of one Chinese artist – it is a test of freedom of expression, historical memory, and the most basic boundaries of the rule of law,” he says. If the international community responds to Gao’s prosecution with silence, he warns, it will set a dangerous global precedent: “that a state may retroactively redefine the meaning of art and turn satire, reflection, and memory themselves into crimes. Gao Zhen is under threat today; tomorrow it could be any writer, filmmaker, musician, or critic.”