China's revaluation is a bid to hit the brakes  By Ross Gittins
July 23, 2005  Working out the implications of China's decision
to change its exchange rate is a lot trickier than you may
think.  It's undoubtedly a step in the right direction, as
everyone's saying, but it's not clear whether its medium-term
effect will be good or bad and, over the next few months, its
effect will probably be minor.  For openers, we can say that the
move to revalue the yuan by 2 per cent against the US dollar
isn't nearly as significant as the associated decision — to
shift from keeping the yuan's value fixed to the US dollar to
now fix it against a basket of the currencies of China's major
trading partners.  Indeed, if the 2 per cent revaluation were
all there was to it, we could dismiss the move as of no
noticeable consequence. The Americans and others who've long
been pressing China to revalue have been thinking in terms of 10
to 20 per cent.  So, it's only if the move to a new regime for
China's exchange rate leads eventual