Just what is S.1619 trying to achieve? Strip out the legalese and righteous indignation from the US Senate’s bill on exchange-rate reform, and it is clear that the US wants to force the pace of China’s currency appreciation. This is, and will remain, a pointless endeavour.

Beijing knows that a stronger renminbi is in its own interests. A weak currency reduces the real value of household income while subsidising production in the tradable goods sector, therefore putting upward pressure on the national trade surplus. As Yi Gang, head of the foreign-exchange regulator, has noted, that still-significant surplus – $95bn in the year to August – is the “root cause” of China’s inflation problem. But rebalancing takes time. And the world’s number two economy absolutely will not be rushed, least of all by the number one.

Although the Senate professes to be worried about sustained undervaluations of real effective exchange rates, it is obvious that its ire has been provoked by the effective freezing of just one nominal rate – the dollar/renminbi – at about 6.38 since mid-August. Politicians should note, though, that the renminbi has outperformed every emerging-market currency bar the Peruvian sol over that period. They might also observe that the renminbi circulating offshore in Hong Kong has spiked as high as 6.55 in recent sessions – showing market pressure towards renewed depreciation. Onshore, even as the currency has been hitting the upper limit of its 0.5 per cent daily range, the People’s Bank has continued to set its daily reference rate at new record lows.