China has been provoked into speeding renminbi internationalization. But despite rapid growth in offshore financial markets in RMB, the Chinese authorities are essentially trapped into maintaining exchange controls-reinforced by financial repression in domestic interest rates→to avoid an...

The paper argues that persistent current account surpluses and increasing foreign currency-denominated asset positions constitute long-term appreciation expectations on yuan and yen, which have made China and Japan vulnerable to U.S. interest rate cuts and appreciation expectation shocks. For...