SHANGHAI: China and Hong Kong stocks ended mostly unchanged on Tuesday, buoyed by tech firms, with investors shrugging off a new US-China trade spat and focused instead on the upcoming annual parliamentary sessions to gauge Beijing’s policy direction.
China on Tuesday swiftly retaliated against fresh US tariffs, announcing 10%-15% hikes to import levies covering a range of American agricultural and food products, and placing 25 US firms under export and investment restrictions.
China’s blue-chip CSI300 Index closed down by 0.1% and the Shanghai Composite Index was up 0.2%. Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng was down 0.3%.
Yang Tingwu, vice general manager of asset manager Tongheng Investment, said that China’s stock market is immune to higher US tariffs as the country’s growing strength, including military and financial power, is underpinning Chinese assets.
“If you look at TikTok, Xiaohongshu or DeepSeek, China’s technological clout is expanding,” Yang said. Tech shares traded onshore gained nearly 2%.
China’s actions came after US President Donald Trump reaffirmed on Monday that he would increase tariffs on all Chinese imports to 20% from 10% to punish Beijing for failing to halt shipments of fentanyl to the US The US tariffs took effect at 0500 GMT on Tuesday.
The cumulative 20% duty also comes on top of tariffs of up to 25% imposed by Trump during his first term on some $370 billion worth of US imports.
Another trade war will complicate problems for the US, but it’s “not a big deal” for China and Hong Kong stocks, said Charles Wang, founder of Dragon Pacific Capital Management.
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