Renminbi RMB (Chinese yuan CNY) 
effective exchange rate 1994-2010 

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From the beginning of 1994, when exchange rates were unified with the abolition of the Foreign Exchange Certificates, the Chinese yuan (renminbi) was pegged to the US dollar. This meant that it fluctuated against other currencies in the same direction as the US dollar. 

As foreign exchange reserves built up and the United States called on China to allow its currency to appreciate against the US dollar, China eventually responded by allowing the yuan to rise against the dollar from July 2005. 

But while the yuan appreciated against the US dollar, it fluctuated in both directions against the currencies of other trading partners who were complaining that the Chinese currency was undervalued.

Suffering from a collapse of some 20% in its exports as a result of the collapse of consumer demand in the United States and Europe during the current global economic crisis, China in mid-2008 sought to revive export growth by re-pegging its currency to the US dollar. As a result, the effective exchange rate of the yuan has fallen from a peak of around 120 at the end of 2008 and the early months of 2009 to less than 112 by the end of 2009. Subsequently, it rose along with the US dollar against other major world currencies and by end-May 2010 exceeded 116. In June 2010 China's central bank announced that the yuan would again be unpegged from the US dollar and would in future be tied to a basket of currencies. The Chinese government, however, made it clear that rapid appreciation was not acceptable.