金融英语阅读：China rebuffs pressure on yuan
China rebuffs pressure on yuanChina Wednesday rejected a charge of manipulating its currency amid what appears to be a fresh mounting wave of pressure from the United States for a stronger yuan before the midterm election in November there.
"It is groundless for the US to criticize China's exchange rate policy simply according to the trade surplus alone," Yao Jian, spokesman with the Ministry of Commerce, said Wednesday at a news conference.
US exports to China have substantially increased in recent years, he said, and US exports to China accounted for 6.8 percent of its total export shipments last year, rising 1.4 percentage points compared with 2008.
Yao's comments came ahead of two days of key US congressional hearings later in the day, launched by the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, which will hear testimony from US industry heads, trade experts and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner about how to prompt China to let the yuan rise in value, Reuters reported.
Some foreign critics and manufacturers say the Chinese currency is undervalued by as much as 40 percent. They believe China's undervalued currency is an artificial boost for China's export industry.
According to government statistics, China posted a third straight trade surplus of more than $20 billion in August, fueling long-time claims that the yuan is undervalued.
Ahead of the US congressional hearings, the central parity rate of the yuan strengthened to a new record Wednesday at 6.725 per US dollar, according to the data released by the China Foreign Exchange Trading System, and appreciated in value for four consecutive trading days.
"The flexibility of the yuan exchange rate has already increased, and there is little possibility of a sharp appreciation of the yuan," Li Daokui, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the People's Bank of China, the central bank, told the Global Times Wednesday on the sidelines of the Summer Davos forum in Tianjin.
"China's exchange rate policies should not change under external pressure," Li noted, adding that the future of the yuan exchange rate rests with the pace of economic adjustments.
The Chinese currency has seen increased volatility since the central bank announced on June 19 this year to increase exchange rate flexibility, according to Li.
Ding Yifan, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, told the Global Times Wednesday that "Washington's punitive measures against China on the yuan issue would spark a trade war, and the US will be the loser."
Tan Yaling, head of the China Forex Investment Research Institute, stressed the need to continue efforts in diversifying the foreign exchange mechanism, in which the yuan is pegged to a basket of major international
Their (US lawmakers') efforts are attempting to make China an easy scapegoat for US economic woes and don't reflect the fact that the yuan has increased in value by more than 20 percent since 2005, the Xinhua News Agency commented Wednesday.
The US should be bold enough to take responsibility for creating the trade imbalances instead of casting blame on others, Xinhua wrote.
Also Wednesday, Yao said China resolutely opposes the US Commerce Department's decision to impose anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Chinese steel products.
The US Commerce Department said Monday that it would impose anti-dumping duties ranging from 48.99 percent to 98.74 percent to offset below-market pricing by
Yao said the Chinese government and industries would not accept the duties, as they were discriminatory.
A total of 36 leading US business organizations, including the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said Tuesday in a joint letter to the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander Levin that "We strongly oppose legislation that would allow the use of either the anti-dumping or countervailing duty law to address currency concerns."
金融英语阅读：China rebuffs pressure on yuan
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