Podcast

In August 1988, a cinema in Cangnan County, Zhejiang, became a temporary courtroom where farmer Bao Zhengzhao and his family sued the county government. The dispute began with the partial demolition of a house. Before China had a unified Administrative Litigation Law, how did the courts accept, hear, and decide this case? This episode traces the development of administrative litigation from scattered judicial practice to unified legislation and asks what it meant to bring the government into court.

Meng Wanzhou was arrested at Vancouver International Airport in 2018 and returned to China three years later after entering into a deferred prosecution agreement. In September 2026, this case spanning more than two decades went to trial in the Eastern District of New York. This episode traces the background of the US lawsuit against Huawei and analyzes the specific charges brought by the prosecution.

On the evening of April 9, 1996, eighteen-year-old Hugjiltu discovered a murdered woman. He asked a colleague to help report the crime, only to be identified by investigators as the killer. Just 62 days separated the crime from his execution; his acquittal came 18 years later. This episode returns to the Strike Hard era, tracing the Hugjiltu case from conviction to exoneration.

Beginning with Ng Ka Ling, this episode traces the Court of Final Appeal’s judgments and the Hong Kong government’s response to explain the first NPC Standing Committee interpretation of the Basic Law. It examines how final adjudication and final interpretive authority coexist after the handover, and how constitutional disputes affect families on either side of the border.

On October 28, 1977, more than two thousand Hong Kong police officers and family members petitioned at Police Headquarters, after which some protesters stormed the ICAC Operations Department. Beginning with Peter Godber’s escape, the creation of the ICAC, and the Yau Ma Tei Fruit Market Case, this episode examines how Hong Kong built an independent anti-corruption system—and the price that reform exacted as the government tried both to pursue old cases and preserve public order.