Asian stocks start lower on US-China trade war escalation

Asian stocks opened in the negative territory today, pressured by the US Commerce Department's announcement of blacklisting 28 chinese  companies and government agencies due to human rights violations in addition to putting visa restrictions on Chinese officials linked to the mass detention of the Uyghurs muslims minority in Xinjiang.

In return the Chinese government urged the removal of these sanctions and called on the US to stop interfering in the country's internal affairs, which comes ahead of the upcoming trade talks round between the two countries on Thursday and Friday.

Whilst, the Chinese Vice Premier, Liu He, and Governor of the People's Bank of China, Yi Gang, confirmed earlier this week their visit to Washington for the next round of talks in Oct 10 and 11, while the US administration's decision to increase the tariffs to 30% on Chinese imports worth $250 billion will come into effect by Oct 15.

The Japanese stocks fell today, as the Topix fell by 0.50% or 7.95 points to 1,578.55 points, and Nikkei 225 fell by 0.67% or 144.80 points to 21,442.98.

The Chinese stocks also fell, as CSI 300 fell by 0.16% or 6.00 points to 3,831.68, while the Shanghai Composite index fell by 0.06% or 1.68 points to 2,911.89.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell by 0.32% or 83.96 points to 25,809.44, New Zealand's NZX 50 fell by 0.45% or 50.02 points to 10,966.13, and the Australian S&P/ASX 200 fell by 0.66% or 43.23 points to 6,550.20.