China stocks slip on trade concerns; Hong Kong ends lower

SHANGHAI, July 16 (Reuters) - Mainland China stocks slipped on Wednesday as concerns lingered over trade relations with the U.S., while Hong Kong gave up earlier gains and ended lower after investors digested Nvidia's NVDA.O resumption of chip sales to China.

At the close, the Shanghai Composite index .SSEC was down 0.03% at 3,503.78 points, while the blue-chip CSI300 index .CSI300 was down 0.3%.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the country would fight China "in a very friendly fashion".

"In our base case, we assume that the U.S. tariff rate on China would stay unchanged at 30% — but the recent escalation of U.S. tariffs on other economies is likely to further dampen global trade momentum," Morgan Stanley economists said in a note.

"In particular, the U.S. has started addressing transhipment concerns by introducing a two-tiered tariff structure on imports from Vietnam — 20% for direct imports and 40% for those deemed transhipments from China. If similar measures are extended to other countries, this could further pressure China's export performance."

In Hong Kong, the benchmark Hang Seng index .HSI ended down 0.29% at 24,517.76 points. Tech giants listed in Hong Kong .HSTECH dropped 0.24%.

Nvidia's NVDA.O planned resumption of sales of its H20 AI chips to China is part of U.S. negotiations on rare earths, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Tuesday, and comes days after its CEO met Trump.

Rival AI chipmaker AMD AMD.O also said the U.S. Department of Commerce would review its licence applications to export its MI308 chips to China.

Meanwhile, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang described AI models from Chinese firms Deepseek, Alibaba 9988.HK and Tencent 0700.HK as "world class" and said AI was "revolutionising" supply chains, at an exhibition in Beijing on Wednesday.

Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index .MIAPJ0000PUS was weaker by 0.21%, while Japan's Nikkei index .N225 closed down 0.04%.