With China at the centre of an escalating trade war that has rattled global markets, all eyes were on the Shanghai stock exchange when markets opened at 12:30pm AEDT.

And perhaps not surprisingly, Chinese stocks are getting hammered — as the Shanghai composite index immediately dipped by more than 3%.

Here’s the opening move in China:

The selloff extended a global market rout triggered by the Trump administration’s announcement of aggressive tariffs against China overnight.

The Chinese government blasted President Trump in response, stating it will “not recoil from a trade war“.

After US stocks slumped by almost 3%, markets in Australia and South Korea are both down by around 2% in midday trade. And as for Japan’s Nikkei, it’s getting destroyed.

Sentiment is no better in Hong Kong, with the Hang Seng index also dipping by around 3% at the opening bell:

In addition to competing trade threats from both sides in the US-China showdown, there’s also looming geo-political turmoil over a US diplomatic visit to Taiwan.

Given the co-ordinated selloff across global stocks — and a flight to safe haven assets such as US bonds and the Japanese yen — there may be further turmoil to come until markets get some clarity on the scope of the potential economic fallout from a US-China trade war.

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