Japan is a cautionary tale for anyone with an eye for green shoots. At least twice in its “lost decade”, fleeting signs of recovery yielded to the reality that the economy had not yet overcome a crisis emanating from its burst bubble at the start of the 1990s. Twenty years later and even the seemingly verdant foliage resulting from six years of growth between 2002 and 2008 has shrivelled to nothing. The shockwaves from a crisis this time manufactured in the US will scythe some 6 per cent off output.

Japan’s growth spurt was wrongly judged by many to have resulted from government policy, a line peddled by Junichiro Koizumi, former prime minister, in his “no growth without reform” mantra. What he should have said was “no growth without external demand”. Almost all the expansion under his premiership was predicated on strong demand from the US, China and elsewhere. That demand has now gone into freefall. And with it any hope of expansion. Figures out last week showed that, in the year to March, the economy suffered its first trade deficit in nearly 30 years. Exports, production and capital expenditure have collapsed.