Wall Street also had a gloomy session, with the S&P 500 .SPX losing 2.4 percent on Thursday, with 40 percent of the stocks in the benchmark trading 20 percent or more off of their highs, the definition of a bear market.
That was despite a drop in layoffs and the number of Americans filing for jobless benefits, pointing to a strong December employment report on Friday.
After the U.S. market close, two Apple suppliers added to growing worries about slowing shipments of iPhone 6S and 6S Plus by cutting their revenue estimates for the third quarter.
The Chinese moves offered a leg up to oil futures, with both Brent crude and U.S. oil rallying more than 2 percent.
Brent LCOc1 gained 2.2 percent to $34.49 after touching $32.16 on Thursday, the lowest since April 2004. The gains narrowed losses for the week to 7.5 percent.
West Texas Crude CLC1 advanced 2.1 percent to $33.98, on track for a weekly loss of 8.3 percent.
The shaky risk appetite seen this week sent investors flocking to low-risk assets such as bonds, gold and traditional safe-haven currencies, although that demand eased slightly on Friday.
The 10-year U.S. Treasuries' yield fell to a 2 1/2-month low of 2.119 percent US10YT=RR on Thursday and last stood at 2.1720 percent.
Gold eased back to $1,103.45 after earlier rising to $1,112 XAU=, the highest since Nov. 4. That brought gains for this year to 4 percent.
The yen pulled back from Thursday's 4 1/2-month high of 117.33 yen JPY=, last trading at 118.35 yen. The euro slipped 0.5 percent to $1.0880 EUR=.
The Australian dollar, often used as a liquid proxy for China trade, strengthened to $0.7055 after falling to a three-month low of $0.6981 AUD=D4 on Thursday. It's down 3.1 percent this year
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