When the crawling exchange rate revaluation was introduced in 2005, Chinese exporters claimed that it would ruin their competitiveness and lead to mass unemployment (and eventually a repeat of the Wuchang uprising, down with the man!) Instead of insurrection, total Chinese exports continued to increase during the period of the crawling peg. This graph shows the inverse of US-China trade deficit (effectively, Chinese net exports to the US) and the USD-CNY exchange rate (Chinese net exports to US, left axis, USD million; exchange rate on right axis):

Despite a rising currency and financial crisis, the Chinese trade surplus continued to increase throughout the last several years. This means that major exporters, who claimed that a stronger currency would harm sales to their primary market (the US), don’t have much of a foundation to stand on.

The Rmb will be revalued (likely another crawling peg); probably sometime in the next eighteen months. The central government has committed to a number of policy goals (decreased reliance on international demand, an increase in domestic purchasing power), both of which would be served by a stronger Rmb. Since exporters will be the major group opposed to a currency revaluation, the fact that there’s not a shred of evidence that they were harmed by the events of the past three years stands as a strong indictment of their case.