A few weeks ago, China’s biggest bank by customers dispatched a quiet delegation of top officials to Greece. Agricultural Bank of China was not there to make an opportunistic acquisition of its Greek namesake or to do a bit of Chinese empire building. This was a more fundamental trip, part of a eurozone fact-finding mission that bears testimony to one thing – China is worried about the state of the eurozone. And it is not alone among its Asian neighbours.

Over recent weeks, Asia’s largely dispassionate observation of the economic slowdown in Europe has given way to fears that the eurozone’s sovereign debt woes could trigger deep problems for the broader Asian economy and its financial centres.

Singapore and neighbouring south-east Asian nations are among the most vulnerable to direct disruption, because so much of their economic activity depends on international trade. Even the least bearish bankers are braced for at least a repeat of the 2008 hit to Asia’s economy – and its banks – when the first flush of the global financial crisis led to two quarters of negative growth in the region.