TOKYO -- Hitotsubashi University Professor Emeritus Yoko Ishikura has been picked to run Japan's new digital agency which is being established to encourage the adoption of technology.

The agency will begin operation on Sept. 1. Ishikura, effectively the no. 2 in the agency, will advise the minister, who is yet to be appointed. Ishikura will be in charge of the day-to-day operations. She will lead the drawing up of policies to establish and manage the information systems of national and local government organizations,

TAIPEI -- Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi on Wednesday reported record profit for the April-June quarter as the world's second-largest smartphone maker snapped up market share lost by domestic rival Huawei due to a U.S. crackdown.

Xiaomi's quarterly revenue grew 64% on the year to 87.79 billion yuan ($13.55 billion), while net profit jumped 84% year-on-year to 8.26 billion yuan. The smartphone maker warned

HONG KONG -- Hong Kong police are investigating the pro-democracy group that organizes the city's annual commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown for suspected collusion with foreign groups.

Under the national security law imposed on the city by Beijing in June 2020, such collusion is a crime punishable by up to life imprisonment.

The police sent three-page notices on Wednesday to the seven standing committee members of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, demanding that they

TOKYO -- Japan has begun preparations to take in Afghans who worked for its embassy and aid organization, an unusual opening of doors to war refugees amid mounting concerns of Taliban retribution against locals who worked with foreign governments.

As Afghans and foreign nationals alike desperately try to flee the country after the Taliban's lightning assault took over the country, including the capital Kabul, Japan this week sent a Self-Defense Forces transport plane to evacuate Japanese nationals and local staffers at its embassy and the Japan International Cooperation Agency to a

TAIPEI -- Contract chipmaking giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. told clients Wednesday that it plans to raise prices on products by as much as 20%, in what would be the company's steepest single increase.

The price increases and the time frames for the hikes differ depending on the client, according to reports by Taiwan's Liberty Times newspaper and other media outlets. For some companies that received TSMC's notice, the hikes took effect immediately.

TSMC and other Taiwanese semiconductor companies raised chip prices by more

NEW DELHI -- The Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan has raised alarm in India that terrorist groups will rise up to threaten Kashmir, where New Delhi is locked in a decadeslong territorial dispute with neighbor Pakistan.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed such concerns in a call Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Indian media, saying that terrorism must not be allowed to spread from Afghanistan. Modi also discussed the impact of the Taliban's resurgence on global security with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday.

The

HANOI -- U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris began her visit to Vietnam on Wednesday by pledging Washington would continue to keep a robust footprint in the South China Sea and would donate 1 million more vaccine doses.

"Let me affirm that the United States Navy will maintain a strong presence in the South China Sea and will continue to challenge Beijing's bullying and excessive maritime claims," Harris said in the capital, Hanoi, during talks with Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc and other leaders.

Harris said the White

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 is the 2014 recipient of the Vaughn-Ueda International Journalist prize for international reporting.

TOKYO -- One cannot overstate the shock that has rippled through Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, as well as across China.

On Saturday, China's top anti-graft agency said the city's top official, Chinese Communist Party

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

Rodrigo Duterte's most potent weapon is denigrating critics in bombastic and colorful fashion.

Political opponents, journalists, the United Nations, the pope, U.S. presidents, Singaporeans, women and Holocaust survivors have been among those to suffer the Philippine President's wrath.

But what history -- and global investors -- may remember most is the next target