South Korea's Kospi index, meanwhile, erased earlier losses to close higher by 0.27 percent at 2,450.74 despite the move lower in major technology names.
Elsewhere, China markets were in positive territory. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index bounced 1.82 percent by 3:00 p.m. HK/SIN after its tentative open in the morning. The materials sector outperformed the broader index, trading up 3.65 percent ahead of the market close.
On the mainland, the Shanghai composite gained 1.67 percent to end at 3,190.65 and the Shenzhen composite rose 0.51 percent to finish at 1,841.22.
Down Under, the S&P/ASX 200 advanced 0.83 percent to 5,857, as the energy, materials and financials subindexes all recorded gains of more than 1 percent.
Dow Jones industrial average futures were higher by 283 points in Asia afternoon trade.
"The market is reacting positively to the speech and many points [Xi] highlighted in the speech were actually well anticipated by many of the domestic observers here in China," Hao Hong, chief strategist at Bank of Communications International, told CNBC's "Street Signs."
He pointed to better market access and the lifting of foreign ownership caps as examples of those measures.
Masayuki Kubota, chief strategist at Rakuten Securities in Japan, said the improvement in market sentiment was a result of Xi's speech, which reduced fears over the threat of a U.S.-China trade war.
Investors had been on edge over the possibility of a trade war happening in recent sessions, but the improvement in risk appetite saw the greenback gain against the safe haven Japanese currency.
Against the yen, the dollar firmed to trade at 107.15 by 2:48 p.m. HK/SIN, compared to levels around the 106.9 handle seen before Xi's speech.
Meanwhile, the Australian dollar, which tends to be sensitive to Chinese economic news, strengthened 0.47 percent to $0.7733.
The dollar index was mostly steady at 89.886.
Markets in the region had traded mixed ahead of Xi's speech, which had been anticipated amid heightened U.S.-China trade tensions in recent weeks.