China, Hong Kong shares weighed down by tech stocks

By Jiaxing Li

HONG KONG, March 13 (Reuters) - China and Hong Kong shares fell on Thursday, pressured by tech and AI-related firms, although gains in banking and energy stocks helped cushion the broader decline.

At the midday break, the Shanghai Composite index .SSEC was down 0.4% and China's blue-chip CSI300 index .CSI300 fell 0.2%.

The Hang Seng Index .HSI weakened 0.7% in Hong Kong, while the Hang Seng Tech Index .HSTECH slipped 2.2%.

Tech shares led the losses in both onshore and offshore trading. The CSI AI Index .CSI930713 dropped 2.2%, heading for its biggest single-day decline in two weeks, while Alibaba 9988.HK and Tencent 700.HK retreated 2.7% and 1.4%, respectively, in Hong Kong.

However, the banking index .CSI399986 climbed 0.6% and energy shares .CSIEN rallied 3.2%, helping limit declines.

On Wednesday, Donald Trump threatened to escalate a global trade war with further tariffs on European Union goods, as major U.S. trading partners said they would retaliate for trade barriers already erected by the U.S. president.

The resilience of Chinese stocks in the face of the U.S. equity selloff could be unsustainable as the economies could deteriorate as U.S. demand – the sole pillar of global growth in the past two years – vanishes and tariffs bite, analysts at BCA Research said in a note.

Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index .MIAPJ0000PUS fell 0.49% while Japan's Nikkei index .N225 was up 0.42%.