Asia open: Calm after the tariff storm, but political chaos brews in Japan

By the time the first futures ticked in Asia yesterday, traders had already known that Friday’s tariff inferno might be more flashbang than fire. “The meeting is still on,” Trump had said, and that was enough to stop the world’s most anxious traders( Chinese Retail Traders) from tearing up their playbooks. The market, having been whiplashed by countless cycles of tariff threats and tariff rollbacks, now treats Trumpian escalation like a summer thunderstorm — noisy, electric, but seldom apocalyptic.

China’s markets behaved like seasoned veterans of the trade war trenches. The Hang Seng was bruised but not broken, down a mere 1.7% — a world away from April’s 13% nosedive when the “Liberation Day” tariffs first detonated. Back then, Beijing had to wheel out its “national team” of institutional firefighters to douse the flames. This time, they didn’t even put on the helmets. The CSI 300 fell half a percent before staging a classic V-shaped rebound — the kind of chart pattern that tells you traders have seen this movie before and know exactly when to buy the dip popcorn.

That dip-buying instinct wasn’t limited to Shanghai. U.S.-listed Chinese names, such as Alibaba and the China Internet ETF, donned the rally caps overnight. It’s less about blind optimism than muscle memory: the last time Trump went full tariff maximalist in April, panic selling gave way to one of the most powerful bull runs of the year. Markets have learned that the louder the threats, the closer we are to a handshake.

Underneath the surface calm, there’s also a quiet faith in China’s own growth engines. The AI and semiconductor stories have become the new liquidity magnets, drawing in every local fund manager with a chip-and-chatbot dream. Hua Hong Semiconductor, Alibaba, and the domestic chip complex have more than doubled this year — the kind of performance that makes even seasoned traders forget about Washington’s tweets. The “national team” may not have been needed because retail and institutional players alike have learned to wear hard hats.

The yuan’s mild rise and the modest uptick in long-end bonds (CGBs)told the same story: this wasn’t panic, it was price discovery. Beijing’s daily fixing was firmer, a subtle way of saying, “we’re fine.” A few years ago, a threat of 100% tariffs would have sent the yuan into a tailspin. Now, it barely flinches.

Meanwhile, over in Tokyo, the calm looks fragile. Japan’s markets open after a long weekend to a double punch: political chaos and Trump’s trade theatrics. The ruling coalition has fractured, leaving Prime Minister Takaichi’s new administration wobbling just as investors were celebrating fresh Nikkei highs. The same nationalist tilt that had sent defence and tech stocks soaring may now work in reverse as uncertainty creeps back in. Futures are pointing lower, and exporters — always the first casualty of a tariff tantrum — are bracing for a rough session.

Even outside of the domestic political theatre, the picture, however, is more layered than it looks. Japan and Korea — the perennial middle children of global trade diplomacy — could actually suffer if U.S.–China concessions narrow tariff differentials. In relative terms, what’s “good” for Washington and Beijing might dull their own competitive edge. For Korean chipmakers and Japanese automakers, too much Trump -Xi harmony could feel like a trap: a market suddenly levelled, margins quietly eroded.

The JGB market, already jittery with yields hovering near multi-decade highs, faces its own test this week with a 20-year auction. Political instability tends to make Japan’s bond market look like a Shinkansen that suddenly hit a patch of gravel — still fast, but nervously rattling. Traders are discussing the risk of “policy drift,” the concern that a revolving-door government could undermine fiscal discipline, just as the Bank of Japan tiptoes toward normalization. If yields rise, it won’t stay a domestic issue; the ripple could echo across Europe and the U.S., where every tick higher in JGBs sends global bonds twitching in sympathy.

Still, Japan has a knack for turning political soap operas into trading opportunities. The market veterans there live by a golden rule that feels almost Zen in its simplicity: buy the red, sell the green, and never chase a candle. Even amid the noise, some see light at the end of the fiscal tunnel — a rebound in small caps, a domestic demand cycle finding its legs, and a path back to realism once the political fog lifts.

So, as Asia picks up the buy-the-dip baton this morning, it’s clear that sentiment has evolved. Panic has been replaced by performance art. Every tariff threat now comes with its own playbook — sell the rumor, buy the tweet, and wait for the meeting photo-op. Japan may open rough, but the region as a whole looks ready to trade the post-panic recovery arc one more time.

The real question isn’t whether traders still believe in diplomacy — it’s whether they’ve figured out how to monetize the chaos. In this theater of tariffs and tweets, everyone’s an actor, but only a few get paid to stay calm when the lights flicker.