Tech shares lead China, Hong Kong markets higher ahead of Trump-Xi meeting

SHANGHAI, May 13 (Reuters) - China and Hong Kong shares firmed on Wednesday as investors bought an early dip in artificial intelligence-linked stocks while keeping expectations low for a meeting between U.S. and Chinese leaders this week.

The Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC shrugged off early losses to end morning trading up 0.1%, flirting with an 11-year high. The blue-chip index CSI300 .CSI300 also recouped losses to trade flat by the midday break.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index .HSI swung to a gain of 0.3%.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week will hold their first face-to-face talks in more than six months as they try to stabilize ties strained by trade, the Iran war and other disagreements.

"Geopolitics will be at the front of minds for many investors, particularly if the meeting helps energy supply concerns in the Gulf," said Ben Bennett, L&G's head of investment strategy in Asia.

"I think expectations are relatively low for meaningful agreements, so there's upside risk here," Bennett said, adding that he's looking at any concrete deals around shipments of Chinese rare earths and U.S. chips.
More than a dozen CEOs and top executives from companies such as Tesla TSLA.O, BlackRock BLK.N and Illumina ILMN.O were expected to accompany Trump on his visit on May 14 and 15.

Nvidia NVDA.O CEO Jensen Huang also joined following a last-minute call from Trump.

"We've seen this movie before, and we know it doesn't end with a breakthrough agreement that resets the U.S.-China relationship. That creates a pretty low bar for success," said Phillip Wool, chief research officer and head of portfolio management at Rayliant Investment Research.

"The low bar of 'just don't mess anything up' means even modest progress - an announcement of some extension to the tariff truce, for example - could give stocks on both sides a boost."

Chinese investors continued to snap up high-flying stocks across the AI supply chain, including sectors such as green electricity .CSI931897, cloud computing .CSI931469, big data .CSI930902 and chipmaking .CSI950125.

Chinese robot makers .CSIH30590 and defence firms .CSI399959 also rose.

But livestock and agriculture stocks .CSI930707 fell amid expectations China and the United States may reach a farm deal during the Trump-Xi summit.