The diminishing impact of exchange rates on China's exports

China's exports increased from $62 billion in 1990 to $3.6 trillion in 2022. This surge has generated protectionism abroad. Researchers found that renminbi appreciations in earlier years decreased China's exports. This paper presents time series and panel data evidence indicating that both real effective and bilateral real exchange rates after the 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) no longer affect aggregate exports. It also finds that almost all individual export categories were sensitive to exchange rates before the GFC but that less than half are afterwards. These results imply that, if policymakers in China and the rest of the world want to influence China's trade, they need to use instruments other than exchange rates.