HANOI/NEW DELHI | Tue Dec 4, 2012 7:39am EST HANOI/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Vietnam condemned on Tuesday China's claims to disputed South China Sea islands as a serious violation of its sovereignty after saying it was setting up patrols to protect its fisheries and accusing Chinese boats of sabotage. The condemnation of China's claims to the sea and its num...

By Aruna Viswanatha and Dena Aubin WASHINGTON/NEW YORK | Mon Dec 3, 2012 6:01pm EST WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Regulators on Monday charged the Chinese arms of five top accounting firms with securities violations over their refusal to produce certain audit papers for U.S.-listed Chinese companies. The Securities and Exchange Commission began...

MOSCOW/BEIJING | Mon Dec 3, 2012 4:00pm EST MOSCOW/BEIJING (Reuters) - Russia and China urged North Korea on Monday not to go ahead with a plan for its second rocket launch of 2012, with Moscow saying any such move would violate restrictions imposed by the U.N. Security Council. North Korea's state news agency on Saturday announced the decision to launch...

By Andy Bruce and Lucy Hornby LONDON/BEIJING | Mon Dec 3, 2012 8:56am EST LONDON/BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese manufacturing returned to growth in November for the first time in over a year and the deep downturn in euro zone factories eased slightly, according to business surveys on Monday. Monday's purchasing managers indexes (PMIs) suggested Chin...

By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK | Mon Dec 3, 2012 9:17am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 could rise for a fourth straight day on Monday as U.S. stocks were set to open higher on upbeat factory data from China, but concerns over budget dealings in Washington are expected to keep traders cautious. China's economy picked up in November even as a...

By Umesh Desai and Pete Sweeney HONG KONG/SHANGHAI | Sun Dec 2, 2012 4:06pm EST HONG KONG/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Chinese search engine company Baidu Inc paid a lower interest rate than Google Inc when it sold $750 million in 10-year bonds last month. China's three dominant dot-com names - Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent Holdings Ltd - have successfully ...

Fri Nov 30, 2012 8:16am EST (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co (F.N) and Mazda Motor Corp (7261.T) and their local Chinese partner, Changan Automobile Co Ltd (000625.SZ), said on Friday that they had obtained final approval from the Chinese government to split their three-way manufacturing and sales joint venture into two. Starting immediately, Changan Ford Mazda Automobi...

By Matthew Bigg JAKARTA | Fri Nov 30, 2012 6:44am EST JAKARTA (Reuters) - China's plan to board and search ships that illegally enter what it considers its territory in the disputed South China Sea could spark naval clashes and hurt the region's economy, Southeast Asia's top diplomat warned on Friday. Seeking to ease alarm over the issue, China s...

By Samuel Shen and Kazunori Takada SHANGHAI | Fri Nov 30, 2012 6:19am EST SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's state-backed electronic payment services giant, China UnionPay, launched an international arm tasked with speeding its expansion overseas, heating up competition with rivals such as Visa Inc (V.N) and Mastercard Inc (MA.N). The move underscores ...

SHANGHAI | Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:34pm EST SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Apple Inc's latest iPhone has received final clearance from Chinese regulators, paving the way for a December debut in a highly competitive market where the lack of a new model had severely eroded its share of product sales. China is Apple's second-largest market and its Chinese fans are eagerly...

By Norihiko Shirouzu SHANGHAI | Thu Nov 29, 2012 7:47am EST SHANGHAI (Reuters) - General Motors Co unveiled its latest global research center in China on Thursday, where it hopes to take advantage of the country's vast supply of engineering graduates to drive its development of a new generation of electric vehicles. China's auto market has grown ...

BEIJING | Wed Nov 28, 2012 7:45am EST BEIJING (Reuters) - China's cabinet vowed on Wednesday to tighten laws on the expropriation of farmland, warning that the problem risked fuelling rural unrest and undermining the country's food security. "Rural land has been expropriated too much and too fast as industrialization and urbanization accelerate," state n...

BEIJING | Wed Nov 28, 2012 6:11am EST BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Wednesday that people should not read too much into the placement of a new map in its passports that depicts claims to disputed territory, after the United States said it would raise concerns with Beijing over the issue. The Philippines and Vietnam have condemned the new microchip-eq...