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Asian stocks mostly climbed on Monday, with Japan shares surging, after last week's sharp selloff. But China's shares lost ground as its markets re-opened after the week-long Lunar New Year holiday.

The Nikkei 225 retraced losses some of Friday's losses, jumping 4.95 percent, and the Topix surged 5.89 percent in morning trade. The Nikkei had lost as much as 12.88 percent between February 1-12.

Bucking the regional trend, mainland Chinese markets opened lower, with the Shanghai composite falling 2.04 percent and the Shenzhen composite dropping 2.17 percent. That disappointed analysts' expectations that the rally in U.S. and Europe on Friday and recent comments made by People's Bank of China (PBOC) governor Zhou Xiaochuan on the yuan might have a positive impact on trade.

Over the weekend, Zhou told Caixin financial magazine that he saw no basis for a continuing the depreciation of the yuan, which is also known as the renminbi. He also dismissed speculation that Beijing would tighten capital controls to stem the surging capital outflows from the mainland.

In South Korea, the Kospi was up 1.55 percent.

Down Under, the S&P/ASX 200 was 1.08 percent higher. The index was buoyed by gains in the materials sector, which was up by 4.12 percent, and the energy sector, which gained 1.03 percent.

Banking stocks across the region traded mostly higher, following gains for their counterparts in the U.S. and Europe on Friday.

Australia's so-called Big Four banks - ANZ, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac and NAB - traded up between 0.89 and 2.43 percent.

Japanese banks, which have sold off sharply since the Bank of Japan's surprise decision to introduce negative interest rates toward the end of January, rallied, with Mitsubishi UFJ up 6.90 percent, SMFG gaining 8.80 percent, Mizuho Financial up 7.73 percent and Nomura up 8.15 percent.

Brokerages in South Korea were also up between 2.35 and 11.91 percent, with Samsung Securities up 3.48 percent and Daewoo Securities gaining 4.14 percent.

Japanese stocks rallied across the board, with sentiment getting a fillip after Kozo Yamamoto, a key Abe ally, suggested on Friday that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe needed to hold an emergency economic summit to discuss measures to address a global growth slowdown as well as market turbulence.

"An emergency meeting will be a positive," said Evan Lucas, a market strategist at spreadbetter IG, in a morning note. "even if it's for the wrong reasons and this remains a 'watch this space' moment."

Major exporters Toyota, Nissan and Honda gained between 5.01 and 6.55 percent on the back of a stronger dollar-yen pair, which was up 0.35 percent at 113.60. Last week, it fell as low as the 111-mark. A weaker yen is a positive for exporters as this increases their overseas revenue when converted into local currency.

Japan's trading houses, known as "sogo shosha," which supply everything from energy to metals to grains and textiles in the resource-scarce country, all saw sharp rebounds Monday morning, trading up over 7 percent each. Among the big five, Itochu Corp was up 8.18 percent.

Japan's economy, however, contracted at an annualized rate of 1.4 percent in the quarter from October through December, hurt by weak private consumption and housing, according to official data.

Reuters reported that the preliminary figure for GDP was higher than what the market expected - a Reuters poll had estimated a 1.2 percent contraction. In the July-September period, Japan's revised GDP numbers showed a 1.3 percent gain.

Oil prices again came under pressure during Asian hours. U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures were down 1.02 percent at USD 29.14 a barrel after gaining 12.32 percent on Friday during U.S. hours. Brent was down 1.20 percent at USD 32.96 a barrel, following a 9.35 percent gain in U.S. trade on Friday. But oil prices still remain depressed and volatile.

Last week, UAE's energy minister said OPEC was willing to cooperate on an output cut, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, and added that cheap oil was forcing supply reductions that would help re-balance the market. In recent weeks, several reports have speculated a possible supply cut from OPEC members, particularly Saudi Arabia, even as U.S. inventories continued to build up.

Energy plays traded mostly higher across the region, with Santos down 2.37 percent, Woodside Petroleum gaining 3 percent, Inpex chasing the rally on its benchmark index to trade up 5.6 percent and S-Oil up by 0.54 percent.

Hong Kong-listed shares of CNOOC, Petrochina and Sinopec were up between 2.43 and 2.67 percent, while mainland shares of China Oilfield slipped 2.76 percent.

This followers a higher finish on Wall Street on Friday. The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 313.66 points, or 2 percent, at 15,973.84. The S&P 500 ended up 35.70 points higher, or 1.95 percent, at 1,864.78 and the Nasdaq composite gained 70.67 points, or 1.66 percent, to close at 4,337.51.