In 2019, two court rulings in China on the issue of copyrightability of AI creations received international attention. It was reported that in Feilin v. Baidu, known as the first AI case, the Beijing Internet Court denied copyright of AI creations, whereas the Shenzhen Nanshan District People’s Court acknowledged copyright of AI creations in the Tencent Dreamwriter case. The two cases, however, were quite similar, as they acknowledged copyright of AIassisted, not AI-generated, written works and recognized these works as a work of a legal entity. The difference between the two judgments is that the Beijing Internet Court regarded originality as an independent requirement and judged it according to the objective standard, whereas the Shenzhen Nanshan District People’s Court regarded human creation as part of the requirement of originality. In this sense, it was the Beijing Internet Court that actually made the more favorable judgment on an AI-generated work.

It is not easy to detect East Asia’s presence in the field of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), despite its large economy. In addition to having less active foreign direct investment (FDI) relative to GDP and fewer investment treaties, East Asian economies and societies seem to possess certain characteristics that have contributed collectively to the dearth of ISDS cases in East Asia. Examples are the short history of international arbitration, the avoidance of litigation, the high proportion of state-owned enterprises in outward FDI from China, and the concentration of FDI in industries in which investor-state disputes are less likely to occur. This trend, however, is likely to change gradually with the ongoing socioeconomic changes in the region, including the increase in both outward and inward FDI, the increasing number of investment treaties, the growing familiarity with international (investment) arbitration among legal experts, the diversification of FDI, and the decreasing fear of administrative litigation.