"Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan yesterday questioned whether the rapid increase in imports from China and the fact that the Chinese government has pegged the value of its currency at a low level compared with the dollar are significant factors in the weak U.S. labor market.</br></br>Challenging what he labeled ""a strain of so-called conventional wisdom,"" Greenspan said in a speech in Dallas: ""The story on trade and jobs, in my judgment, is a bit more complex, especially with respect to China. . . . If the renminbi were to rise, presumably U.S. imports from China would fall as China loses competitive position to other low-wage economies.</br></br>""But would, for example, reduced imports of textiles from China induce increased output in American factories?"" the Fed chairman asked. ""Far more likely is that our imports from other low-wage countries would replace Chinese textiles.""</br></br>The Bush administration has been pressing China, whose exports to the United States have increased 20 to 25 percent both last year and this year, to move to a flexible exchange rate regime rather than keep its yuan, also called the renminbi, pegged at about 8.28 to the dollar, as it has been for nearly a decade. Under a flexible regime, the yuan's value would be determined primarily by financial markets.</br></br>""With it rapid growth and substantial foreign exchange reserves, China is now in a position to show leadership on the important global issue of exchange rate flexibility,"" John B. Taylor, the Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, told a congressional hearing a few weeks ago."