Fears of new American sanctions against China, to reduce Chinese access to semiconductors, pushed leading stock indexes in China down during Thursday's initial trading hours.
The composite indexes in Shanghai and Shenzhen were down 0.3 and 0.2 percent, respectively, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong had fallen 1.4 percent.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index rose 0.5 percent, and the broader Topix index by 0.7 percent. The driving force there was, among other things, a weakening of the Japanese currency, the yen.
In South Korea, the Kospi was largely unchanged. There, the central bank unexpectedly lowered the interest rate by 25 points to 3 percent.
