Traders in Asia will also look toward August consumer prices index from Japan and Hong Kong, and central bank decisions from Bank of Japan and People's Bank of China.

The Asia-Pacific equity markets were higher on Thursday as investors reacted to the latest Federal Reserve monetary policy decision. The Fed delivered an aggressive half percentage point rate cut on Wednesday for its first-rate reduction in four years.

Japan’s prime minister has demanded an explanation from Beijing over the fatal stabbing of a schoolboy in the second knife attack on Japanese children in China in months.

A Chinese aircraft carrier entered an area near Japan's shores for the first time on Wednesday, leading Tokyo to convey its “serious concerns” to Beijing over China’s increasingly assertive military actions around Japan,

China said on Thursday its Liaoning aircraft carrier had been on a routine training mission in the western Pacific and dismissed charges by Tokyo that the vessel and its escorts had entered Japanese waters.

A Chinese aircraft carrier entered Japan's contiguous waters for the first time on Wednesday, Japan's defence ministry said, the latest in a string of military manoeuvres that has ratcheted up tensions between the neighbours.