Stocks in China rallied on Friday, after the U.S. carried out its threat and raised tariffs on Chinese goods at midnight.

Mainland Chinese stocks bounced following an earlier wobble. The Shanghai composite rose 3.1% to about 2,939.21 and the Shenzhen component soared 4.03% to 9,235.39. The Shenzhen composite also jumped 3.833% to close at around 1,568.62.

The U.S. increased tariffs from 10% to 25% on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods at 12:01 a.m. ET Friday, even as the White House said negotiations will continue. In response, Beijing said it "deeply regrets" the tariff hike and would take countermeasures — though no specifics were provided, Reuters reported.

"Given how much markets have corrected over the past few days, you would expect some short covering," said Ken Wong, Asia equity portfolio strategist at Eastspring Investments. "No one knows what's going to happen over the weekend."

Acknowledging that continued talks on Friday stateside will be "positive," Nick Marro, analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said the escalation was likely to "hang over these talks like a dark cloud."

"I think the fact that ... the tariff escalation was acted upon is going to do a lot to erase a lot of the goodwill and the positive momentum that we saw build up over the first quarter and it's going to be very difficult for both sides to really come back from that," Marro told CNBC's "Capital Connection" after the tariff increment.

He pointed out that the potential for a deal "has gone down significantly" and the possibility of talks breaking down even further has risen.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index added around 1%, as of its final hour of trading.

Elsewhere in Asia, however, the picture was mixed. The Nikkei 225 in Japan fell 0.27% to close at 21,344.92, the Topix also declined fractionally to finish its trading day at 1,549.42.

In South Korea, the Kospi was 0.29% higher to close at 2,108.04, while the in Australia finished 0.25% higher at 6,310.90.