Hong Kong’s leader said Monday that anyone who objects to the installation of a Chinese checkpoint at a local railway station is fundamentally ill-informed. Protests erupted in the former British colony on New Year’s Day after Beijing lawmakers voted to allow Chinese immigration checks and the enforcement of Chinese laws in a part of Hong […]

The head of Singapore’s central bank said on Monday he hoped the technologies underpinning cryptocurrencies such as blockchain would not be undermined by an eventual crash in the digital money. The city-state has been positioning itself as a hub for fintech — or financial technology —but has urged “extreme caution” about buying cryptocurrencies. “I do […]

SoftBank Group plans to list its mobile-phone business and raise some $18 billion, the Nikkei newspaper said, a spin-off that would complete the Japanese telecoms conglomerate’s transformation into a global technology investor. The parent will sell some 30 percent of SoftBank. It plans to apply to the Tokyo Stock Exchange for the IPO as early […]

Pyongyang could still pull out from the upcoming Winter Olympics, a North Korean media outlet threatened in response to recent “ill-boding” remarks by South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Moon’s praise of President Donald Trump in a speech last Wednesday chilled the atmosphere for North-South reconciliation, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). “They […]

Wall Street closed out last week at records and the dollar slumped, setting the stage for Asia’s Monday trading day. U.S. stocks touched record levels on Friday after major banks, including J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo, announced better-than-expected quarterly reports. Earnings season kicked off last week and is expected to be robust, with fourth-quarter S&P […]

China will step up oversight in the banking sector this year to reduce financial risks, the country’s banking regulator said, stressing that long-term efforts would be needed to control banking sector chaos. The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said late on Saturday in a statement that its priorities included increasing supervision over shadow banking and […]

North Korea’s International Olympics Committee (IOC) official said it is considering South Korea’s proposal for a united female hockey team, Yonhap news agency reported on Saturday. South Korea’s unification ministry and sports and tourism ministry both said they have no knowledge of the matter. A senior South Korean official said on Friday that Seoul is […]

China’s aviation authority on Friday demanded an apology from Delta Air Lines for listing Taiwan and Tibet as countries on its website, while another government agency took aim at Inditex-owned fashion brand Zara and medical device maker Medtronic Plc for similar issues. The moves follow a regulator’s decision on Thursday to suspend Marriott International Inc’s […]

North Korea’s rapidly advancing nuclear capability is not the fault of President Donald Trump, but rather of successive U.S. administrations who’ve failed to reign in the rogue state, according to a former White House foreign policy director. “Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump: this is a 20-year failure of American foreign policy,” James Rubin, former assistant […]

Beijing has developed a new “landing ship” that could be used in future wars involving islands, Chinese media reported Thursday. That news follows a Reuters report last month that a Chinese official threatened the communist nation would invade Taiwan if a U.S. warship visited the self-ruling island. Also, Chinese state media recently have played up […]