If yesterday’s devaluation of the renminbi was China’s entry to the currency wars, it brought a knife to a gunfight. The currency fell 1.9 per cent against the dollar, which is the biggest daily fall since 1994 but barely makes a scratch in its rise of a fifth against both the yen and the euro since last summer.

Traders are probably wrong to expect a series of government devaluations. People’s Bank of China policymakers may be part of a repressive autocracy, but they are not stupid: they know devaluations should be big one-off events, not a run of small cuts which encourage capital flight.

Still, there is fear in the markets that further devaluation is on the way, exporting deflation. Doubt was even cast on US rate rises, with two-year US bond yields yesterday -giving up all of last week’s increase.