Officials on both sides are laying the groundwork to push back a new round of U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports set to come into effect on Dec. 15, the Wall Street Journal reported.

"Market players are positioned for a delay at the very least," Maybank said in a note.

Leading gains in the region, the Philippine benchmark had its best session in more than a week, with blue chips SM Investments Corp and Ayala Land lifting the index.

The Singapore index, which is highly sensitive to developments on the trade war front, posted its biggest intraday percentage gain in nearly three weeks.

United Overseas Bank added 0.9%, while DBS Group Holdings rose 0.4%.

However, the Thai index continued to fall for the tenth straight day and closed at its lowest level in nearly a year. Including the session's decline, it has lost 3.9% in last 10 days.

Continued uncertainties around U.S.-China trade talks were taking a toll on Thai markets, said Teerada Charnyingyong, a strategist at Phillip Capital, Thailand.

"Everyone can see that Thailand's GDP growth is impacted a lot from the trade war and our export data has turned negative, That's the reason everyone continues to revise our GDP down."

Thailand's central bank cut growth forecast for this year to 2.8% in September, and the finance ministry followed suit in October, in line with the growth predicted by a Reuters poll.

Financials were the top losers, with the Siam Commercial Bank and Kasikornbank posting losses.

The Malaysian benchmark snapped two sessions of losses, with index heavyweights Malaysia Airports and AMMB Holdings gaining 0.7% and 0.8%, respectively.

Vietnamese stocks ended a tick higher, underpinned by financials.

By Arundhati Dutta