MUNICH -- European automakers have begun to announce the rollout of affordable electric vehicles to counter the rise of Chinese competitors in their backyard.

Volkswagen unveiled a compact EV, the ID Life, at the International Motor Show, which opened Tuesday and runs through Sunday in Munich. The model is due to go on sale in 2025 for 20,000 euros ($23,719), which is 30% cheaper than electric vehicles being sold today.

*The price is

TOKYO -- Junior lawmakers from Japan's governing Liberal Democratic Party have called for an open vote to determine who should succeed outgoing Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga as party president, rather than backing the candidates endorsed by their faction bosses.

Their proposals reflect the young LDP lawmakers' desire to choose a new chief capable of leading the party to victory, especially ahead of the lower house election that will follow on the heels of the presidential race.

Traditionally, Japanese politics has been driven by factions led by heavyweight politicians. In past

Katsuji Nakazawa is a Tokyo-based senior staff writer and editorial writer at Nikkei. He spent seven years in China as a correspondent and later as China bureau chief. He was the 2014 recipient of the Vaughn-Ueda International Journalist prize.

TOKYO -- A search for "Cultural Revolution" in Baidu's trending discussions section leads to the following message: "There are currently no related discussions for this."

That is strange, considering China's social media is ablaze with discussions on this topic

NEW YORK/NEW DELHI -- The Taliban-led new caretaker government in Afghanistan must stay true to its promise to allow people to leave the country, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday.

Speaking alongside German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas at Ramstein Air Base, a U.S. facility in Germany that has been a transit point for evacuees from Afghanistan, Blinken said, "We must hold the Taliban, including the recently announced caretaker government and any eventual Afghan government, to their commitment to allow

TOKYO -- As Tesla prepares to debut its electric cars in India, automakers worldwide are watching how New Delhi responds to the company's push for lower tariffs and how that could impact their own strategies in the Indian market.

The world's largest electric vehicle maker had obtained approval to sell four models in India as of the end of August, according to the website of the country's transport authority. Release dates and price tags have not been announced, but speculation suggests the EVs will be available in the

TOKYO -- Japanese sculptor Minako Yoshino had just moved to New York when two hijacked jets smashed into the side of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. The horror and destruction of that day sparked a period of deep emotional turmoil for the artist. But she soon found solace in the idea that even when people with firsthand memories of an event are gone, art can help their stories live on into the future. Nikkei interviewed Yoshino and asked for her thoughts on the role of art

William Pesek is an award-winning Tokyo-based journalist and author of "Japanization: What the World Can Learn from Japan's Lost Decades."

Few things trigger investors more than trending news linking George Soros and Asia.

It gets worse when a billionaire infamous for shorting entire economies -- Malaysia, anyone? -- starts betting at least rhetorically against the biggest in Asia. Soros is now chiding BlackRock for leading the global race to invest in China, calling it a "tragic mistake" in a recent Wall

TOKYO -- Japanese biotech unicorn Spiber has approved raising 34.4 billion yen ($312 million) from investors led by U.S. private equity firm Carlyle Group in one of the biggest funding rounds for a Japanese startup.

Spiber, known for making fibers inspired by spider silk , is employing a combination of new-share issuance and a value securitization scheme backed by such intangible assets as intellectual property. It announced the capital increase Wednesday.

The amount exceeds the 31.6 billion yen raised

TOKYO -- Sanae Takaichi burnished her conservative credentials in launching her bid Wednesday to lead Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, stressing the need to strengthen economic security to counter an increasingly aggressive China.

Takaichi, a 60-year-old former Japanese internal affairs minister, is seeking to represent the hawkish wing of the party that has dominated postwar Japanese politics. She has reportedly been backed by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who led the country from 2012 to 2020.

Takaichi told reporters in