Neighbours whose economic fortunes were supposed to be tied to the heft of the country’s rebound from the pandemic seem to be doing pretty well without it.

Singapore, which had been dogged for part of 2023 by fear of recession, finished strongly. South Korea’s economy closed out December with solid momentum. Markets across Asia have been obsessed with when the Federal Reserve will begin to cut interest rates; the prospect of the People’s Bank of China further reducing borrowing costs is met with a yawn.

This isn’t the way things were meant to be. Bullishness about China, and its ability to propel the rest of Asia, was abundant when President Xi Jinping began to dismantle COVID zero in the closing months of 2022.