"The EU and China are broadly on a colliding trajectory in terms of their trade and industrial policy concerns," he told CNBC. Bones of contention include the challenge of China's overcapacity and trade diversion to Europe, Stec, who is also head of the Mercator Institute's Brussels office, explained.

Not everyone is worried. “But to us and from a market perspective, the tariff debate has been thoroughly pushed to the background with the U.S.-China trade pause,” say strategists at HSBC led by Max Kettner, chief multi-asset strategist at HSBC. “Similarly, recent price action is showing smaller sensitivity of risk assets to tariff headlines.”

The United States has made South Korea's participation in its containment policy against China a prerequisite for bilateral cooperation in the shipbuilding sector, one of the key items in the two countries' ongoing trade negotiations,

The total value of goods exchanged between the US and China plunged below 2020's pandemic era low in the second month of the new tariff war between two nations.

China's economy is expected to have slowed down in the second quarter from a solid start to the year as trade tensions with the United States added to deflationary pressures, reinforcing expectations that Beijing may need to roll out more stimulus.

China is expanding its visa-free entry to 75 countries as part of a broader campaign to boost inbound tourism.