Yuan step at a time
It has become a cliché to say that America and China operate on entirely different historical timescales—but sometimes clichés contain a grain of truth. As Donald Trump meets Xi Jinping this week, talk has turned to the possibility of a currency accord, akin to the Plaza Agreement of the 1980s, in which China agrees to let the renminbi appreciate. Anyone expecting an immediate breakthrough would do well to remember that Beijing measures progress in decades, not news cycles. On paper, the renminbi looks firm, trading near a nominal three-year high as today’s state banquets get underway. China no longer intervenes...