In a crisis, it is common to experience perceptual narrowing. Victims focus obsessively on an immediate problem to the exclusion of other risks.

Investors have been on tenterhooks over whether China Evergrande would default on $83m in dollar bond interest payments this week. That may come down to semantic and legal arguments over what “default” means. The bigger issue is whether a two-tier China bond market is emerging, with domestic currency investors advantaged over foreign currency bondholders.

Evergrande said it had “resolved” payment of a yuan-denominated domestic bond, but made no mention of dollar commitments. If the government has nudged the hugely indebted property group into paying onshore investors first, they may emerge as preferred creditors in other cases too.