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The Shanghai Composite index slid as investors locked in profits on bluechip companies after a rally this year of nearly 20 percent.
Other indexes in China, Singapore and India saw losses ranging from 2 to 3.7 percent, while Taiwan lost 0.6 percent.
The MSCI index of Asia-Pacific stocks outside Japan dipped 0.8 percent following a slight rise Friday in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, despite dismal data showing U.S. unemployment surging to a 25-year high in February.
The Nikkei average in Japan fell 1.2 percent to a 26-year closing low, while the broader Topix slipped 1.5 percent to a fresh 25-year low.
Asian stock markets have held up better than others in the United States and Europe on expectations that households and governments in the region are better able to keep spending because they are less indebted.
Hopes that China will do everything it can to keep its economy chugging at an 8 percent annual growth rate have also underpinned Asian stocks.
‘‘We still believe underlying fundamentals in Chinese companies are much, much stronger than the OECD countries,’’ said Winson Fong, a fund manager at SG Asset Management in Hong Kong, referring to the grouping of countries with free-market economies.
But some analysts were less convinced.
Clive McDonnell, Asia strategist at BNP Paribas in Hong Kong, said that Asian equity markets were unlikely to perform well in an environment where the collapse in exports is showing few signs of abating.
The Shanghai Composite index, which gained 5.29 percent last week, ended Monday down 3.39 percent at 2,118.748 points in active trade.
Economic indicators to be announced in the next few days are expected to show China that slipped into consumer price deflation last month, and it may conceivably have posted a very rare trade deficit for February.
Also, the annual session of Parliament is due to end late this week; hopes for positive policy announcements from the session lifted the market in speculative trade last week, but the government has so far disappointed hopes for a formal expansion of its economic stimulus program.
‘‘The rally linked to the Parliament session is near to an end,’’ said Cao Xuefeng, analyst at Western Securities.
Australian shares added 0.3 percent Monday, lifted by strength in the top miners, though gains were capped by fresh weakness in financial shares, including those of National Australia Bank, the top lender in the nation.
Overseas investors have been persistent sellers of Asian stocks, and their actions have been one of the factors pushing regional currencies lower.
The fund tracker EPFR Global said that Asia ex-Japan equity funds saw the biggest outflows among emerging market regions in the week ending last Wednesday, with $1.09 billion yanked out — the most in 20 weeks. Over all, $10.4 billion was pulled out of global stock funds followed by EPFR Global.
Oil rose more than 1 percent to top $46 a barrel, extending the previous session’s gains, as investors banked on expectations that OPEC would cut output again at this month’s meeting.
But gold eased to about $937, pausing after a sharp rebound from $900, while a slight decline in gold ETF holdings, the first since January, was widely seen as a temporary blip.
The benchmark 10-year Japanese yield, which moves inversely to the price, edged up nearly a basis point to 1.29 percent, while JGB futures hit a one-month low.
