Greenspan's faith in self-regulation always looked different from outside the US. In East Asia, the 1997 financial crisis was still a living memory when he was at peak influence — countries like Thailand and Indonesia saw firsthand what happens when capital flows move faster than regulatory oversight. The irony is that China watched the Greenspan era and drew the opposite lesson: rather than trusting markets to self-correct, the PBOC built a toolkit of direct interventions (window guidance, reserve ratios, capital controls) that would make a Western central banker uncomfortable. Whether that's prudence or overreach depends on your priors, but it's worth remembering that the 'maestro' reputation was always more contested in capitals that had been burned by the assumptions he championed.