When I asked Naoyuki Shinohara, deputy managing director of the IMF, he admitted the institution is now more open to such barriers on capital. The key, of course, is not to go too far by inhibiting growth and scaring off foreign investment that's needed to support it.

It's a breathtaking sea change when you consider how the IMF was militantly against controls 12 years ago. Back then, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was an international pariah for implementing them. In late 2006, investors chastised Thailand for slapping controls on markets.

The shift speaks to Asia's predicament over the next couple of years.

Asia has weathered the financial crisis, as just about anyone visiting Tashkent agreed. China and India beat the odds and continue to grow strongly. South Korea confounded the skeptics anew, as did Indonesia. Japan's persistent malaise aside, Asia is hot and getting hotter. The trouble is, all this good press means Asia may have too much of a good thing on its hands.

Greece's Woes
As the U.S. grapples with unemployment, the euro area is trying to avoid disintegration. Greece's woes are reverberating through markets. There's little confidence in Asia that a recent
$146 billion bailout will be the last in Europe. The buzz in Asia is who's next?

Even if concerns about contagion from Europe are overdone, Asia must brace for the opposite: fast-accelerating capital flows from West to East. With official interest rates in the euro area, U.K., U.S. and Japan close to zero, world markets are awash in liquidity searching for higher yields.

For many, that means Asia. Emerging markets need to take "urgent action" on the surge of liquidity and capital flowing into their economies because they could spur inflation and trigger another crisis, according to a report last week by Standard Chartered Plc.

Eoin Treacy's view Despite the increased likelihood that the current pullback is morphing into a mean reversion, in terms of rising 200-day moving averages, for some of Asia's better performing markets, this does not negate the fact that they remain some of the highest growth regions in the world, offering leverage both to the growth of the global middle class and the commodity supercycle.

A number of emerging markets, particularly in Asia have the potential to form investment bubbles, which would provide investors with ample opportunity to profit. Capital controls, if they are indeed introduced, would help to temper foreign investment flows but would probably do little to stem increased domestic consumption of investment products which would be needed to fuel a truly epic mania.

Asian countries remain in sound economic condition, having come through the credit crisis relatively unscathed. We can be reasonably sure that Asian banks own very little southern European debt, (why would they?) and central banks have ample tools to deal with any economic issues that arise. Any mean reversion correction is likely to present interesting buying opportunities provided the primary consistency characteristics of their medium-term uptrends remain intact.