Asia's growth may no longer depend solely on China

Key Asian economies have more than weathered the country’s disappointing post-Covid-l9 expansion, so a rethink may be in order.

- Daniel Moss

China's disappointing recovery appears to be suffering another indignity. 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. Far from being pushed into a slump, some bellwethers had a thoroughly respectable year.

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 United States 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. Even the slight strengthening in the renminbi can be attributed as much to Fed chairman Jerome Powell as Beijing's efforts to put a floor under the expansion.

This is not 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.

Prospects for the region were considered intimately linked to Beijing. But as China's rebound faded, it became commonplace to proclaim that this implied bad tidings for regional economies.