Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, the United States, on March 12, 2020. (Xinhua)

Chinese mainland shares broadly edged down on Tuesday, with both the Shanghai Composite Index and the Shenzhen Component Index closing down despite a higher open. The tech-heavy ChiNext Index finished up 0.36 percent. 

Nearly 1,500 out of 3,600-plus stocks traded on the mainland market on Tuesday ended higher. Stocks related to photoresists, essential materials used in the manufacture of semiconductors, and ultra-high voltage transmission soared while securities and internet economy shares rebounded. 

The mainland market has yet to recover from an across-the-board plunge on Monday after the Federal Reserve surprised the markets with drastic emergency moves, including a rate cut by a full percentage point to near zero and quantitative easing that entails $700 billion worth of asset purchases.

In a sign of market panic, US stocks hit a 7 percent circuit breaker at the open on Monday, and all three US stock indices closed down over 11 percent.

But mainland shares failed to rally even as gains in US stock futures trading triggered an upside halt early in the session after Monday's scary selloff, indicating hesitancy among mainland stock investors toward continued risky bets.

With the global market now in fragile mode, exemplified by dramatic swings in US stocks, money appears to have not rotated to safe haven assets such as gold, intensifying fears of liquidity traps.

The prevalence of the cash is king sentiment will not grind to a halt until the COVID-19 pandemic sees signs of hitting a turning point outside of the mainland, which is still some way off. 

US President Donald Trump said Monday that the coronavirus outbreak could stretch into August. 

With US stocks becoming a major destabilizer of global equity markets, Trump's much-touted 10,000-point rally in the Dow since he took office in January 2017 has all but been wiped out. By calling the disease a "Chinese virus" in a Twitter feed, the president, often described as a populist, has sparked anger. China's foreign ministry said Tuesday that the tweet smears China. The ministry noted that the nation strongly opposes Trump's use of the words.

The Trump administration has been passive in tackling the pandemic, not having declared a national emergency until Friday. Monday's trading halt marked the third market-wide halt in a week. It is high time the US joins hands with China in a concerted effort to contain the pandemic, notably on the vaccine front, rather than the other way around. 

With the coronavirus effectively contained inside China and the nation's real economy running in a more stable and safe fashion than its global peers, the mainland market looks to be a better choice for overseas investors. The earlier the US abandons its protectionist and populist mentality, the sooner it can cooperate with China in reviving growth.