Indonesia rescues its first bank since the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. Japan and South Korea want to bolster their bail-out funds. State intervention is coming full circle – right back to the part of the world where it most recently flourished.

Unlike their western peers, Asian banks are mostly bystanders whose main sin was to lend to fast-growing economies. With few exceptions, they entered the crisis in decent shape. They neither made dumb loans, nor used short-term funding to finance longer-term liabilities. But such discipline counts for little now that export-orientated Asian economies, as Monday’s trade data showed, are also feeling the global slowdown. Impairment costs at banks are rising, while profits are crumbling.