If there were any doubt about how dependent Asia has become on the Chinese economy, it is likely to have been dispelled by the predictable and almost immediate response to Beijing's 2.1 per cent revaluation of the renminbi on Thursday night.

Malaysia instantly copied China, abandoning its dollar peg and adopting a managed float against a basket of foreign currencies before ringgit trading restarts on Friday. The Singapore dollar rose by about 2 per cent against the US dollar following China's announcement, although it eased after apparent intervention by the central bank.