Shares were mixed Tuesday in Asia after benchmarks fell on Wall Street, snapping a nine-day winning streak.
Oil prices bounced back part-way from a 4-year low and U.S. stock futures slipped.
A monthly survey measuring future activity in China's services sector fell to its lowest level ever, excluding the pandemic, in a further sign the escalation of U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war is hitting the world's second-largest economy.
A drastic increase in tariffs on U.S. imports of Chinese products, to 145%, has caused a sharp drop in shipping and other logistics.
''Overall optimism among Chinese firms weakened to the lowest level since this series began in April 2012, resulting in further job cuts in April,'' said the report by Caixin, a financial media group.
Still, Chinese markets advanced after reopening from ''Golden Week'' holidays. The Shanghai Composite index added 1% to 3,311.89, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong was up 0.7% at 22,651.65.
Taiwan's Taiex slipped less than 0.1%
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.2% to 8,148.40.