Romney Refuses to See China Progress on Yuan

The yuan’s 23 percent rally against the dollar in the past five years doesn’t impress Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who vows on the campaign trail to brand China a “currency manipulator.”

The view is more tempered in Washington, where Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner praises China for letting the yuan trade more freely. Lawmakers from Romney’s own party, including House Speaker John Boehner and Representative Dave Camp, say a Senate-backed bill punishing China for undervaluing the currency to boost exports ignores such issues as intellectual-property theft and might prompt a trade war.