Asian stocks lower amid concern over Greece

Beijing - Asian stock markets were mostly lower on Tuesday after Wall Street was dragged down by mounting concern about Greece's standoff with its creditors.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 declined 0.3% to 17 652.88 and Seoul's Kospi shed 0.6% to 1 935.86. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was off 0.1% at 24 502.96. Sydney and Taipei also fell. The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.7% to 3 117.57. Southeast Asian markets mostly dropped.

Tensions between Athens and its foreign creditors mounted after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Sunday declared an end to budget cuts and tax increases. Tsipras said he would press for a short-term loan to give the country and its creditors time to negotiate a replacement for its bailout program. Greece is a relatively small economy but investors worry that if it drops out of the euro currency, that might send shock waves through financial markets.

READ: No more money with strings attached - Greece

"We think there has not been a sharp downturn in global growth recently, although activity has slowed gradually in China and remains sluggish in Japan and the eurozone. But another familiar problem, the fiscal crisis in Greece, clearly poses a significant downside risk to the global economy, even if the threat of contagion has diminished somewhat since 2012," said Andrew Kenningham of Capital Economics in a report.

Stocks slipped on concern about Greece even though US companies are reporting better earnings than expected. The Standard & Poor's 500 slipped 0.4% to close at 2 046.74. the Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.5% to 17 729.21, while the Nasdaq composite fell 0.4% to 4 726.01.

Benchmark US crude was down 80 cents to $52.06 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract added $1.17 on Monday to close at $52.86. Brent crude, used to price international oils, declined 77c to $57.58 after adding 54 cents to close at $58.34 on Monday.

The gains on Monday came as Opec said that it expects demand for crude to rise this year and US output to fall.

The dollar weakened to ¥118.54 from Monday's ¥118.58. The euro rose to $1.1339 from $1.1330.