Investors will have taken note of that but if, as the Fed said, there is potential for the US dollar to strengthen further, why not against the yuan?

Admittedly, when the PBOC reintroduced the counter-cyclical factor adjustment in late August, its intention was to try to contain yuan weakness. But as Simon Derrick, chief currency strategist at BNY Mellon wrote last week, while the yuan then remained relatively strong for a few days, “the story since the end of August has been a slow, steady grind lower for the [Chinese currency]”.

Containment might have slowed the yuan’s downward move, but it hasn’t reversed it and, frankly speaking, there’s no particular reason why it should, with investors perhaps mindful of a rating agency writing that China’s local governments have built up massive “hidden debts”, and amid clear evidence that the PBOC is easing monetary policy at a time when inflation in China poses no particular threat to such a stance.

Surely references such as “a debt iceberg with titanic credit risks” might seem more consistent with a weaker yuan than a stronger one.

Additionally, and bearing in mind the Fed’s intentions to carry on hiking US interest rates, China’s own monetary policy conditions are easing. “Aggressive monetary easing, including both [reserve requirement ratio] cuts and [open market operations], so far this year has injected [3.4 trillion yuan] into the banking system”, analysts at Citibank Hong Kong wrote on October 15.

The Citibank China Economics view added that Chinese authorities “may no longer view the [Chinese yuan-US dollar exchange rate] at 7 [yuan to one dollar] as an important psychological threshold to defend”, and that “in times of need, the RMB could be allowed to weaken further to beyond 7”.

Nor is PBOC monetary easing inconsistent with the level of Chinese inflation.

Commenting on China’s inflation data for September, HSBC wrote last week that “despite plenty of worries, [consumer price index] inflation prints have been quite stable over the summer”. Although it noted that producer price index inflation has been “marginally higher than expected”, the firm’s view is that “for now, stable inflation should give [China’s] policymakers plenty of policy space to further fine-tune policies”.

The US Treasury may be concerned about the depreciation of China’s currency, but there’s a persuasive narrative that argues for yet more yuan weakness. Washington might not like it, but the yuan may fall further.

Neal Kimberley is a commentator on macroeconomics and financial markets