An ugly start to the week for Chinese stocks will leave plenty of investors wondering how Beijing might respond both to the market’s woes and a slowing economy. But concern that China might resort to a big one-off devaluation of the renminbi to boost growth should be dismissed.
Such a provocative move would give US President Donald Trump an excuse to redouble his efforts to contain China’s economic rise. His opposite number, Xi Jinping, will not take the bait.
Mr Trump must have been tempted to order the US Treasury to recast its criteria so it could have named China a currency manipulator, after it let the renminbi depreciate roughly 10 per cent against the dollar over the past six months as the US imposed tariffs on Chinese imports.