A political commentator said China’s move to file a complaint with the World Trade Organisation over the Trump administration's tariff threats aims to create a contrast to the US's practice of dealing with things.

US President Donald Trump had announced a 10 percent tariff on Chinese imports on top of existing duties, a measure which was supposed to take effect on Tuesday.

But Trump held out the prospect of a deal with an announcement on Monday that talks between Beijing and Washington on tariffs would happen within "the next 24 hours".

Einar Tangen, a senior fellow at Taihe Institute and the chairman of Asia Narratives told RTHK’s Hong Kong Today programme that Beijing is "colouring within the lines of the international order" by turning to the WTO.

"Unfortunately, the US has not allowed any appellate judges to be appointed since the Obama administration. That means that they can't render a final decision," he said.

"But I think China is trying to create a stark contrast between what it's willing to do and Donald Trump who seems to... he likes colouring outside the lines. He likes to be brash, bold. He likes to threaten people. And though he generally will pivot on a dime if things aren’t going well, it's still a very marked contrast between two different responses."

While Beijing has yet to impose any countermeasures, Tangen believes they could be related to military and technology.

"Obviously, China has a very large position in the rare earths area, it's indicated before, and has imposed some restrictions on that. You have to register to get some of the... rare earths and things like that. And they said they're not going to export them for military use. And I see that probably is where they're going to concentrate," he added.

Lawmaker Regina Ip said Hong Kong has to be more flexible in dealing with incoming challenges, saying the fact that Mexico and Canada were able to delay the imposition of tariffs on their goods underlines the importance of engaging with the United States.

"On the one hand, you need to engage. On the other hand, you need to strengthen yourself and have an arsenal of tools to respond if necessary," Ip told RTHK's Backchat programme.

"Hong Kong has much less leverage being only an SAR. But we have full backing from our country. I think we need to be more nuanced and be more flexible in our approach when we deal with these sort of great power threats."

Ip, who chairs the New People's Party, said people doing business in the Hong Kong are more concerned about interest rates than tariffs.

"We want interest rates to come down to lessen the debt burden on many of our investors, including property tycoons. The continued trend of lowering interest rates would spur our economic growth. We hope the [US Federal Reserve] would resume the downward trend of interest rates if a trade war could be avoided," she said.