Talk:Renminbi

Merge request

I think this article should be merged with yuan. Of the two, it is clearer, and the content overlap is substantial. The yuan article has slightly more historical content, but not enough to justify a completely separate article.

No. Yuan is the unit, and Renminbi is the name of the currency. Yuan and RMB are not supposed to be interchangable, but unfortunately many English-language texts like to make that mistake. RMB only refers to the currency used by the PRC; Yuan refers to any type of monetary form, whether it be republican or some other era; the Japanese Yen uses the same Kyujitai character for yuan, as does the Korean Won. In everyday language, "American yuan" (美元; meiyuan) refers to the US Dollar, and "European yuan" (欧元 ouyuan) refers to the Euro; yuan can have a large variety of definitions, but it cannot be equated with RMB. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 15:40, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Objectivity and POV Neutrality

I am new to this entry, so I have not immediately made any change. In reading it, however two things immediately caught my eye. In the main body, the word "unrealistically" seems rather "unneutral"(!), e.g. the case of: "Initially, the exchange rate was unrealistically high"

Later, in the body of the section "Depegged from the US Dollar" I remain unconvinced of the use of the terms "simply" and "currency war." e.g. "However China has simply shifted their reserves from dollar accounts to accounts in their competitor nations, leading these other nations to invest in dollars to keep their own currencies down. The result has been an international currency war"(with footnote)

I recognize, in the current period there is certainly a range of important effects and counter effects occurring as a consequence of significant fluctuations/revaluations in/of major currencies, and even sovereign interventions, but that hardly seems cause for a neutral, fact based source like WP to use the word "war" (though that time MAY come!), particularly if it is based upon the comments (even if footnoted) of a single finance minister from a country which is facing export challenges as a result of the vicissitudes of global currency markets.

My concern with "simply" is that even if China had shifted all of "its reserves" to accounts in competitor nations, it would not be "simple," and furthermore, it didn't happen. I am convinced that somewhere there are still a few Chinese Treasury accounts denominated in Renminbi. Perhaps the insertion of some words like "allegation" near the word "war," and some quantitative reference to whatever value the Chinese purportedly "shifted" could at least buy some time until a major re/work is done?? Would use of data from footnote 34 (a blog, but from WSJ) be sufficient? Comments?? GrinchPeru (talk) 22:31, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

500 USD per day limit

In the past, I've always been limited to purchasing 500 USD per day at Bank of China, which agrees with the text of this article. Today, though, I was allowed to buy nearly thrice that much for the first time ever. Does anyone know if there's been a change in the laws? Heimstern Läufer (talk) 15:25, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Writie for clarity, please: "principal unit"?

"The Renminbi (sign: ¥; code: CNY) is the official currency of the People's Republic of China (PRC), whose principal unit is the Yuan."

What is "principal unit" even supposed to mean? Does it mean the Renminbi is some multiple of the Yuan? Is one Renminbi the same as one yuan? Is renminbi supposed to refer to all the units (yuan, jiuo, etc). Then does it just mean "PRC money"?

A reader should not have to be asking these questions and shouldn't have to read past the first paragraph to find the answer.

CountMacula (talk) 12:31, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Yuan is a unit, like metres, kilograms, pascals. Renminbi is a currency, like US Dollar, Russian ruble and Euro.

For the unit Yuan, 100 fen units make a yuan unit; 10 fen units make a mao unit, and 10 mao units make one yuan unit. If I had 37,000 fen, that would equal 3,700 mao, or 370 yuan.

370 yuan and 25 fen is the "counting way" of saying RMB¥370.25, similar to how "Ten dollars and fifteen cents" is how you would render US$10.15. In this case, dollar and cent are the names of the units, whilst US Dollar is the name of the currency. Currencies and monetary units do not necessarily equate per se (i.e. not have the same definition).

Just like how you'd count your coins and notes in dollars and cents at the supermarket, but have trades for US Dollars on the stock market/currency exchange, the currency renminbi is what you would refer to the thing that you financially exchange on the market, whilst yuan refers to the individual coins that you take out of your wallet when you buy bananas. Do you call the notes in your pocket "United States Dollars", or just dollars? Same deal. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 13:46, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

English makes this distinction much less clearly than Chinese does, which is part of why the confusion arises. There's really no way around it, either; it's just the way the words are used. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 15:26, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

This might explain a bit better than I do: Stephen Mulvey, 26 June 2010, Why China's currency has two names - BBC News -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 06:29, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree, for many people it's still not clear what the difference is. I mean, if the yuan refers to the coins and banknotes (the actual money people are paying with), shouldn't there be some more info about the yen and the won? The renminbi is the Chinese currency, the Japanese yen is the Japanese currency, and the Korean won is the Korean currency, but they all pay with the yuan/yen/won (it all originates from the same currency, doesn't it?). I mean, isn't it the same with the franc (formerly used in many countries), the krona/kroon/koruna/ etc. (still used in many countries), the florin, the mark, etc. etc.?? Robster1983 (talk) 09:47, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

It's mostly due to historical and political contexts. Renminbi (人民币) literally means "People's currency", similar to how Renmin Gongheguo (人民共和国) means "People's Republic", Renmin Zhanzheng (人民战争) means "People's War", Renmin Yinhang (人民银行) means "People's Bank" - it belongs to one of those communist/socialist contexts. Here, Renmin (人民) means people or populace, and Bi (币) means currency, and it is differentiated from other historical Chinese currencies, such as the Yuan used during the early Republic of China (1912-1949) era. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 11:10, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

More coin detail required

The article needs coin specifications (width, thickness, weight) to be tabulated, and photographs of them. — O'Dea 04:43, 17 December 2010 (UTC)