Asia stocks drift higher on US trade hopes as China talks loom

Most Asian stocks rose marginally on Thursday amid increased hopes for a deescalation in U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff agenda ahead of trade talks between Washington and Beijing later this week.

Regional tech stocks also tracked some gains in their U.S. peers, after reports suggested that the Trump administration was planning to scale back export curbs on advanced artificial intelligence chips.

Asian markets also took a positive lead-in from Wall Street, which was buoyed by tech gains. U.S. stock index futures rose in Asian trade after Trump said he will announce a major trade deal later in the day, with reports suggesting the deal will be with Britain.

S&P 500 Futures added 0.5%, while Nasdaq 100 Futures rose 0.7%. But sentiment towards Wall Street also remained on edge after the Federal Reserve warned of heightened economic and trade uncertainty.

But regional sentiment still remained frail, especially amid heightened military tensions between India and Pakistan, after New Delhi launched strikes against alleged terrorist targets in Pakistan.

Islamabad retaliated with artillery strikes along the border region in Kashmir, with the clash marking some of the worst fighting between the two nuclear armed powers in recent years.

China stocks upbeat, US trade talks in focus

China’s Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 and Shanghai Composite indexes rose 0.4% and 0.1%, respectively, on Thursday.

Chinese stocks saw marginal strength after Washington and Beijing confirmed that officials will meet for trade talks in Switzerland this week. While the prospect of trade dialogue did drive some optimism over deescalation in a bitter U.S.-China trade war, it appeared unlikely that a trade deal would be struck soon.