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ZHANG: Asia stocks rallied on Wednesday after the U.S. Federal Reserve pumped money into the world's strained credit system.Financial shares such as Nomura were among the top performers.Japan's Nikkei ended 1.6 percent higher, with major exporters also gaining ground.Tokyo investors were also soothed by news of economic growth in the final three months of last year.Japan's economy expanded by a revised 3.5 percent last year, but economists say the outlook is weak.On Wednesday, opposition lawmakers vetoed the government's pick for central bank governor. Lawmakers said they were worried that no one would be running the centralbank in the middle of a credit crisis:[Nobutaka Machimura, Chief Cabinet Secretary]:"We believe it is the duty of parliament to avoid creating any policy vacuum. So we plan to ask the Democratic Party to rethink."China shares underperformed with investors worried about more interest rate hikes in face of rising inflation. The Shanghai index lost 2.3 percent.But markets in most of the region gained, including benchmark indexes in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Australia.