Investing.com - Asian markets were mixed in morning trade on Friday as Beijing said the looming U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods are violations of accords reached earlier this year.
China’s Shanghai Composite and the Shenzhen Component rose 0.6% and 0.9% by 11:23 AM ET (03:23 GMT). Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained 0.7%.
China “has no choice but to take necessary measures to retaliate,” China’s State Council Tariff Committee said in a short statement on Thursday, without providing any specific measures.
The U.S. imposed a new 10 per cent tariff on $300 billion of Chinese goods earlier this year. The additional tariffs were set to become effective in early September, but Trump announced that some tariffs against certain goods are now delayed until Dec. 15.
Earlier this week, Trump appeared to have linked Hong Kong’s ongoing political unrest to trade talks with China and said he trusts Chinese leader Xi Jinping would want to solve the Hong Kong problem “quickly and humanely.”
“If President Xi would meet directly and personally with the protesters, there would be a happy and enlightened ending to the Hong Kong problem. I have no doubt!” the president tweeted.
China responded by saying that they do not want external advice on how to deal with Hong Kong.
“Hong Kong is purely China’s internal affair. We have noticed that President Trump has previously said that ‘Hong Kong is part of China and they’ll have to deal with that themselves. They don’t need advice,”’ China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a written comments to a question about Trump’s tweet.
“We hope that the U.S. side will do as what they say.”
Japan’s Nikkei 225 inched up 0.1%.
South Korea’s KOSPI was down 0.8%.
Down under, Australia’s ASX 200 slipped 0.1%.