China's M&A watchdog is getting much faster at approving both domestic and foreign deals, cutting legal costs for companies and marking a shift in the outlook of a regulator that has been a thorn in the side of bankers since its creation.
A deepening sense of impasse gripped Hong Kong as pro-democracy protests entered their fourth week, with the government having limited options to end the crisis and demonstrators increasingly willing to confront police.
China is set to unveil key legal reforms this week that will try to limit the influence local officials have on court cases, a move being closely watched by company executives who hope it will make the legal system more impartial.
Violent clashes erupted early on Sunday in a Hong Kong protest hotspot as unarmed pro-democracy activists once again confronted riot police despite the confirmation of talks between protest leaders and officials early this week.
China and Vietnam have agreed to "address and control" maritime disputes, state media said on Friday, as differences over the potentially energy-rich South China Sea have roiled relations between the two countries and other neighbors.
Chinese Communist Party censors have blocked the website of Britain's national broadcaster, the BBC said in a statement, as tensions rise in Hong Kong between pro-democracy protesters and police.
Taiwan is considering stationing armed vessels permanently on a disputed South China Sea island, officials said, a move bound to renew friction in a region claimed almost wholly by China, with Vietnam already dismissing such a plan as "illegal".
Italy and China signed business deals worth about 8 billion euros ($10 billion) on Tuesday in sectors ranging from energy to engineering, deepening Beijing's commercial ties with the euro zone's No. 3 economy.
China has detained a prominent scholar who helped blind dissident Chen Guangcheng flee to the United States two years ago and has banned books by eight writers in an escalating crackdown on dissent.
Taiwan's president on Friday urged China to move toward a more democratic style of development, reiterating his strong support for pro-democracy demonstrations in Chinese-ruled Hong Kong.
China criticized U.S. Congress on Friday for sending the wrong message to pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong after a congressional report expressed concern about the Chinese-controlled city in a "deliberate attack" on China.
Maersk Line [APMOLM.UL] and Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC), the world's two largest container shippers, won approval from U.S. maritime regulators on Wednesday for a planned vessel sharing pact.
China took last place in an aid transparency index listing 68 donors released on Wednesday, which said the majority of the world's donors were not sharing enough information about their activities.
The rise in rural wages now taking place across Asia could lift hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty in the next decade, a new report showed on Thursday.
In the heart of Mong Kok, one of the most densely populated districts on earth, an abandoned Hong Kong police van is enveloped in the student-led demonstrations paralyzing swathes of the city. Along with yellow ribbons and flowers, symbols of the city’s pro-democracy movement, protesters have taped a hand-written placard in Chinese and English to the side of the locked and undamaged vehicle.
North Korea has told Japan it would not pass on findings from an investigation into the fate of Japanese people abducted by North Koran agents and proposed that Japan sends representatives for talks, Japan's prime minister said on Tuesday.
Thousands of pro-democracy protesters thronged the streets of Hong Kong on Wednesday, some of them jeering National Day celebrations, as demonstrations spread to a new area of the city, ratcheting up pressure on the pro-Beijing government.
U.S. President Barack Obama and new Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed on Monday to expand and deepen their countries' strategic partnership and make it a model for the rest of the world.
About 100 protesters in Taiwan on Monday demanded that all economic and political talks with China end immediately in a show of support for the democracy protests in Hong Kong.
Thousands of Philippine and American soldiers began annual war games on Monday near disputed waters in the South China Sea, testing the readiness of the two oldest security allies in the southeast Asian region to respond to any emergency.
A Chinese court has sentenced two people to death and another to life imprisonment for the murder of a state-backed imam in China's restive western region of Xinjiang, the official Xinhua news agency has said.
