Chinese stocks defied a pullback in global markets Wednesday, as optimism about Beijing’s stronger push to achieve technology self-reliance eclipsed concerns over rising geopolitical uncertainties. The Nasdaq-style STAR 50 Index jumped as much as 4.3%, the most in one week. The broader onshore benchmark CSI 300 gauge was up 0.5% in mid-afternoon trade. In contrast, an Asian equities gauge dropped ...
Chinese stocks defied a pullback in global markets Wednesday, as optimism about Beijing’s stronger push to achieve technology self-reliance eclipsed concerns over rising geopolitical uncertainties. The Nasdaq-style STAR 50 Index jumped as much as 4.3%, the most in one week. The broader onshore benchmark CSI 300 gauge was up 0.5% in mid-afternoon trade. In contrast, an Asian equities gauge dropped 0.8%, after the S&P 500 suffered its steepest loss since October, following President Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on European nations that rejected his proposal to purchase Greenland. Driving the outperformance of the world’s second-largest stock market was a fresh pledge by Chinese policymakers to accelerate efforts to develop homegrown artificial intelligence and aim for technological breakthroughs. Chinese markets have shown surprising resilience in the past year, with unexpectedly strong exports and policy support for advanced manufacturing and technologies cushioning the blow from tariff tensions. Across Asia, chip stocks were strong against the backdrop of higher memory prices, but the gains were more pronounced in China. Loongson Technology Corp. jumped 20%, while Hygon Information Technology Co. advanced 17%. “The strength of chip stocks today seem broad-based and not just about memory price hike,” said Steven Tseng , senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “I would suspect it’s something to do with the ‘self-sufficiency’ theme in China’s chip supply chain.” Chinese onshore stocks reached a four-year high earlier this month, before authorities took measures such as tightening margin financing to slow the pace of the bull run. “Stocks will continue the broader uptrend due to a dearth of assets onshore,” said Chen Shi, a fund manager at Shanghai Jade Stone Investment Management Co. “I think we will see more days like today this year where China is an outperformer globally driven by asset allocation needs.”