China's next minister of commerce Chen Deming has not wasted much time nailing his colours to the mast.
The former energy chief at the National Development and Reform Commission was only shifted over to the commerce ministry a couple of weeks ago, and has yet to be formally confirmed as the new minister.
But yesterday he made clear there would be no change to the powerful ministry's opposition to calls for a rapid gain in the value of the yuan.
Although he insisted that the ministry had never set itself against moderate currency appreciation, he made it clear he would not be prepared to countenance a marked acceleration of the yuan's gains.
'What we oppose is a strengthening of the yuan that is too fast, abrupt and unreasonable,' he declared. And to ram the point home he asserted that 'the call for faster yuan appreciation to narrow the China-US trade gap is irresponsible'.
His comments will have gone down like a lead balloon with United States Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and his delegation from Washington, which is visiting Beijing to call for exactly that: a stronger yuan to trim China's bilateral trade surplus with the US.
Mr Paulson has been arguing that a faster rate of appreciation would be in China's own interests. He contends that a stronger currency would help Beijing to cool its overheating economy, hold down inflation and rein in runaway stock markets.
