Japan's Nikkei fell 1.3 percent and MSCI's broadest index of Asia soothing shares exterior Japan was down 1.8 percent, following losses of around 1 percent on Wall Street and a steeper sell-off in Europe.
The MSCI Asia ex-Japan is down 20 percent for 2011 -- the rule-of-thumb meaning of a bear market -- while the Nikkei has lost about 17.5 percent. Both have underperformed worldwide equities, which have lost around 12.5 percent, and U.S. stocks, which are only down around 3.5 percent.
Europe remains investors' largest worry, with markets still braced for ratings organization downgrades of euro region sovereigns.
"Markets are aggravated and let down, waiting for a road map on the resolution of the two-year-old debt crisis," said Ong Yi Ling, an speculation analyst at Phillip Futures in Singapore. "Risk assets are all down. The debt disaster will be with us at smallest amount through the first half of 2012."
Equity losses in Hong Kong and Shanghai deepened after the free of HSBC's China flash PMI, the latest piece of data to show the world's second largest economy losing steam, but response in broader markets was subdued.