North Korea’s Kim Jong Un was widely believed to be celebrating his birthday on Monday, a day before Pyongyang is set to hold talks with its southern neighbor for the first time in more than two years. The leader is thought to have turned 35, although the North Korean state does not publicly recognize his […]

An Iranian oil tanker that caught fire after colliding with a freighter off China’s east coast is at risk of exploding and sinking, Chinese state media reported Monday as authorities from three countries struggled to find its 32 missing crew members and contain oil spewing from the blazing wreck. State broadcaster China Central Television, citing […]

Virtual reality was identified as a growth area in China’s latest five-year development plan. That’s good news for VR firms such as Jaunt China, the company said Monday. “That’s a very interesting thing to put in their government documentation. You don’t see the United States doing that, or other countries. China has this amazing vision […]

China’s online education industry has flourished following the government’s relaxation of the One-child policy, with English language providers enjoying robust demand. One of the companies benefiting from that boom is Alo7, a Shanghai-based platform that offers its proprietary curriculum to language institutes across China. “We’re a business-to-business player,” Executive Vice President Andrew Shewbart told CNBC […]

There will be consolidation in the Chinese electric vehicle industry, an analyst predicted Monday, highlighting the fierce competition in the world’s largest market for those cars. The battle for electric vehicle market share in China is backed by an aggressive drive by Beijing to cut severe — and politically-sensitive — air pollution in the country. […]

Major technology trends will have knock-on benefits in the Chinese economy, a hedge fund executive predicted on Monday. Cloud computing and artificial intelligence, for instance, “are tremendous trends in which we expect technology breakthroughs to happen. And that will benefit the entire supply chain all the way down to semiconductors, to NAND memory [flash memory] […]

The two largest economies in the world are at the forefront of artificial intelligence development, but the jury is still out on which country is leading the race, according to a start-up with a presence in both the United States and China. “I think it’s still early days. China probably leads on the retail end […]

With more than 300,000 users in China, start-up Niu says it is the country’s largest smart electric scooter brand. “[We’re] driving consumers from low-quality poor scooters to high-quality, lithium battery scooters,” Niu CEO Yan Li told CNBC on Monday. Beijing wants at least 50 percent of all new car sales to be electric by 2020 […]

Australia on Monday said it expects iron ore prices to average $51.50 a tonne this year, down 20 percent from 2017, because of rising global supply and moderating demand from top importer China as its steel sector shrinks. The world’s top three mining companies, BHP and Vale rely heavily on iron ore sales for the […]

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ignored recent peace overtures from Seoul but he’s due on Tuesday to hold a formal dialogue with his southern neighbor for the first time in more than two years. The sudden interest in talks may have something to do with Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal. “The North has made significant […]