I ought to leave the topic to those who follow it more closely, such as Brad Setser, but here’s the Economist on Chinese revaluation:

[M]any mainstream American economists are now calling on China to revalue by 20% or more. Yet the standard arguments for a revaluation are based partly on a series of myths.

The first myth is that there is overwhelming evidence that the yuan is grossly undervalued. China’s large bilateral trade surplus with America proves nothing. It largely reflects Asia’s changing supply chain…

At one extreme is Morris Goldstein, of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who argues that the yuan is undervalued by 40% or more against the dollar and should immediately be revalued by 10-15%. In the other corner many highly respected economists, including Robert Mundell, an economics Nobel prize-winner, and Ronald McKinnon, of Stanford University, strongly argue against a big appreciation of the yuan…

Myth number two is that the sharp increase in China’s trade surplus is due to an explosion in cheap exports… The entire increase in China’s trade surplus since 2004 has come from trade in heavy industrial materials and equipment. China used to import increasing amounts of steel, aluminium, chemicals and machinery, but import growth collapsed after 2004 when the government started to tighten policy, causing a sharp slowdown in construction, one of the biggest importers of machinery and materials. At the same time China continued to invest heavily in metals and equipment, creating substantial excess capacity, so import growth remained relatively weak last year. Mr Anderson argues that imports should recover as overcapacity is used up.

The third fallacy is that imports from China destroy jobs and harm the American economy… Trade with China may affect the composition of jobs in America, but it has little impact on total employment…

The biggest myth of all is that a revaluation of the yuan would greatly reduce America’s trade deficit. The real cause of the deficit is that Americans spend too much and save too little. This means that the country has to import surplus savings from abroad by running a current-account deficit. If a stronger yuan did not cause Americans to save more, it would do little by itself to reduce the trade deficit.

Another reason why even a big rise in the yuan would do little to reduce America’s deficit is that there is little overlap between American and Chinese production, so American goods cannot replace Chinese imports. Instead, other countries, such as Indonesia and Vietnam, would probably replace the Chinese. Shifting purchases to higher-cost producers amounts to imposing a tax on American consumers, says Stephen Roach, chief economist of Morgan Stanley…

America is right that China needs to revalue, but for the wrong reasons. And arguing that a revaluation helps America’s economy makes it less likely that Beijing will act.