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Robert Rubin famously launched a “strong dollar policy” for the US in the 1990s, helping to establish a narrative of American economic strength for the latter half of that decade. Chinese President Xi Jinping is now taking a page out of the former Treasury secretary’s playbook.
It’s essentially a 180-degree turn from the direction Beijing was headed in for close to a generation. Starting in the mid-1990s, China spent a decade regularly intervening in the foreign-exchange market to keep the yuan at a pegged rate to the dollar. Policymakers were essentially maintaining an undervalued exchange rate to help exporters and further the process of industrialization.
