China has adjusted its currency's value for the first time below an exchange rate of eight yuan to the U.S. dollar. Trading in Shanghai began Monday with the yuan at its highest level since last year's revaluation of the currency.
Beijing scrapped the yuan's 11-year peg to the dollar 10 months ago and allowed the currency to rise by two percent. The yuan has appreciated slowly since then, but U.S. Treasury officials have complained about the pace of China's reforms. A U.S. government report last week stopped short of labeling China a currency manipulator, but critics of China's foreign-exchange policies say the yuan is undervalued by 20 to 40 percent.