I don't subscribe to the WSJ so I can't read the OP, but I thought the Yuan was wanting to rise, and that china was slowly letting it revalue. I thought all the economic pressure was aligned that way. Chinese have currency controls so they can't easily sell the yuan to buy other currencies (bitcoin is down for the past couple weeks- the one currency which chinese people love and which doesn't have any controls).
In the future, when there is a link to a paywalled article from WSJ on HN, just click on the `web` link. That takes you to a Google search. Then click on the link to the WSJ from Google and you can read the full article.
In the past, yes. China accumulated large reserves in an effort to keep the renminbi weak (in order to boost exports), but now they've begun spending them again in an effort to strengthen it.
