Hong Kong stocks lead gains in Asia on hopes of de-escalation in U.S.-China tensions

Asia-Pacific markets climbed Wednesday, after all three key benchmarks on Wall Street advanced overnight on optimism that U.S.-China trade tensions could ease.

This comes after U.S. President Donald Trump indicated that final tariffs on Chinese exports to the U.S. “won’t be anywhere near as high as 145%.” However, he added that the duties “won’t be 0%.”

Trump also said he has “no intention“to fire Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell before his term ends, alleviating investors’ concerns over the central bank’s independence.

Hong Kong stocks led gains in the region, with theHang Seng Indexgaining 1.85% in early trade while theHang Seng Tech Indexsurged 2.34%.

Meanwhile, Mainland China’sCSI 300moved up 0.28%.

Over in Japan, the benchmarkNikkei 225added 1.55%, while the broader Topix indexadvanced 1.73%.

In South Korea, theKospiindex increased 1.06%while the small-cap Kosdaq was up 0.86%.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.55%.

U.S.futures jumped after Trump’s comments on not planning to remove Powell from his post as central bank chair.

Overnight stateside,stocks rebounded from steep declines in the previous session, as investors cheered the possibility of easing U.S.-China trade tensions.

TheDow Jones Industrial Averagerose 1,016.57 points, or 2.66%, to close at 39,186.98. TheS&P 500gained 2.51% and settled at 5,287.76, while theNasdaq Compositerose 2.71% to end at 16,300.42.

— CNBC’s Lisa Kailai Han and Alex Harring contributed to this report.