John At The Center

In the United States, the Treasury — and often only the Treasury secretary himself — comments on the dollar. That has helped limit sudden fluctuations in the dollar’s value in currency markets.

But China has no such policy limiting which agencies or individuals can publicly address currency issues. For decades, currency policy has been the purview of the central bank, but the central bank is a politically weak institution. The People’s Bank of China is simply one of many economic policy ministries and even lacks independent authority over monetary policy, unlike the Federal Reserve.

via China Leaders Vie for Control of Exchange Rate – NYTimes.com.