Simon Denyer

TOKYO — DJ Daisuke Kikyo jumped in the air, pumped his fists and blasted hits such as “La Bamba,” “YMCA” and “Call Me Maybe” to hype up the mood at the beach volleyball match held at Tokyo’s Shiokaze Park on Thursday. The video screen instructed fans…

TOKYO — Japanese long-distance runner Hitomi Niiya doesn't want to take a coronavirus vaccine ahead of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. She’s worried about side effects and has faith in the precautions already underway. The 32-year-old elite athlete…

TOKYO — It is one of the many mysteries of the coronavirus pandemic: Why has the death toll from covid-19 apparently been lower in Asia than in Western Europe and North America? Even allowing for different testing policies and counting methods, and…

TOKYO — South Korean President Moon Jae-in pledged on Wednesday to establish road and rail links with North Korea soon, as a first step toward the sort of regional economic integration Europe established after World War II. Moon will travel to…

ALTANBULAG, Mongolia — It was another harsh winter on the central Mongolian steppe, with temperatures dropping to nearly 50 below zero and thick snow covering the rolling grasslands. More than a million cattle, sheep and goats, weakened by a dry…

ULAANBAATAR — Every post had its price. About $400,000 to become a cabinet minister, $120,000 to be the director of a government agency, $4,000 for a senior specialist’s role within the bureaucracy. More than 8,000 jobs in Mongolia’s government and…

ARVAIKHEER, Mongolia — On the vast Mongolian steppe, birthplace of Genghis Khan, a strong man has arisen. Literally. Mongolia’s President Khaltmaa Battulga is a former world martial arts champion who still trains regularly, a friend of Russia’s…

Inside a metal shed in the Tibetan highlands of western China, thousands of microprocessors flank narrow corridors, generating a constant hum and stifling waves of heat. Outside, the sky is clear and blue, with a mountain peak looming at the top of a…

As President Xi Jinping pays a much-anticipated state visit to the United States this week, Beijing wants to show Washington that it is playing nice with the Western media. For the first time in nearly three years, China will grant fresh work visas…

HEXIGTEN, CHINA — Amid the rolling grasslands of northern China, a gleaming new industrial complex offers a beguiling vision for the nation’s leaders. Here, on a sandy plain among scattered flocks of sheep, a flagship plant promises to use China’s…

When the wind blew in their direction, smoke and dust from a huge aluminum smelter would drift across the grasslands where herders had grazed their flocks for generations in China’s Inner Mongolia. A few years after the smelter opened, herders in the…

BEIJING — Riot police have crushed a three-week-long protest against toxic waste from a chemical refinery complex in China’s Inner Mongolia region, according to local villagers and the government. It was the latest in a series of demonstrations about…

Days after strident criticism of the United States for “brutality” and “hypocrisy” over its treatment of terrorism suspects, China admitted Tuesday that it “has not been rare” for its own police for extort forced confessions from criminal suspects by…

China's National Space Administration proudly announced this week that a high-definition satellite had spotted a huge marijuana field straddling two provinces in the north of the country. The news, however, seemed to embarrass the country's…