When China doubled the renminbi’s trading band on Saturday, the central bank proclaimed that it was a move to let market forces determine the value of the long-controlled currency.

当中国在上周六将人民币交易区间扩大一倍时，中国央行宣告，此举是为了让市场力量来决定长期受到控制的人民币汇率。

If that sounds familiar, it is – the People’s Bank of China said exactly the same thing in April 2012 when it last doubled the renminbi’s trading band.

如果此话听上去耳熟，那是因为中国人民银行(PBoC)在2012年4月上一次将人民币交易区间扩大一倍时，说了完全同样的话。

The currency’s record over the past two years offers a cautionary tale about what to expect from this weekend’s band-doubling. Although indicative of China’s desire to eventually make the renminbi freely tradable, it will take more than a wider band for that to happen: traders and analysts say the central bank will have to step aside from managing the currency on a daily basis, something it has so far proved unwilling to do.

人们能够期待此次扩大交易区间之举带来什么？人民币在过去两年的记录提供了一个警世故事。虽然此举体现了中国让人民币可自由兑换的最终愿望，但要真正实现那个愿望，需要的不只是更宽的交易区间：交易员和分析师们表示，央行将不得不放弃日常的汇率管理——这是中国央行迄今不愿迈出的步子。

At first glance, the reform appears to be a huge step. The central bank said the range in which the renminbi can move against the US dollar each day will be doubled to 2 per cent above and below a fixing rate it sets each morning. The new band takes effect today.

乍看之下，最新的改革似乎是巨大的一步。中国央行表示，人民币兑美元的交易价可在其每天早上设定的当日人民币兑美元中间价上下2%的幅度内浮动。新的交易区间将从周一（3月17日）起生效。

Currencies that float without constraints, such as the euro or the yen, rarely rise or fall by more than 1 per cent against the dollar in a day, so China’s widening of the renminbi’s daily range to 2 per cent should be tantamount to setting it free. But the lesson of the past two years is that the band plays a distinctly secondary role to the morning fixing in determining the renminbi’s value, and the fixing is controlled by the central bank.

自由浮动、不受约束的货币（如欧元或日元）很少在一天内相对于美元上升或下跌逾1%。理论上，将人民币的每日交易区间扩大至2%，应当等同于允许其自由浮动。但过去两年的教训是，就决定人民币币值而言，相比央行控制的每日早上设定的中间价，交易区间扮演着明显次要的角色。

“We do not think much will change at the day-to-day level in China’s foreign exchange market,” says Louis Kuijs, China economist with Royal Bank of Scotland.

“我们不认为中国外汇市场将在日常层面发生很大改变，”苏格兰皇家银行(RBS)中国经济学家高路易(Louis Kuijs)表示。

Over the past month the renminbi has in fact become less predictable, losing more than 1 per cent against the dollar. That was an abrupt shift from its steady appreciation of 2013, forcing companies and speculators to unwind one-way bets on its continued ascent. But it is important to recognise that this decline was a product of the central bank’s own intervention rather than of the market forces that Beijing has promised to unleash.

过去一个月里，人民币实际上已变得更加难以预料，相对于美元下跌了逾1%。这标志着2013年期间人民币稳步升值的态势发生突然逆转，迫使企业和投机者解除其对人民币继续升值的单向押注。但有必要认识到，人民币此轮走低是央行自身干预的产物，而不是北京方面承诺释放的市场力量所致。

“The band-widening since 2012 has not heightened exchange rate volatility, indicating that technical modification alone will be unlikely to change market behaviour,” says Liu Ligang, an economist with ANZ.

“2012年以来的交易区间拓宽并没有加剧汇率波动，表明单纯的技术性变化将不太可能改变市场行为，”澳新银行(ANZ)经济学家刘利刚表示。

Throughout most of last year, when the renminbi faced heavy pressure to strengthen, the currency regularly rose to the strong side of its daily 1 per cent band, only for the central bank to return the exchange rate to its original level the next day. The result was that the currency traded in a straight line, inclined softly upwards, with few bumps along the way. Even with the wider trading corridor the currency could easily fall into the same pattern, with the market pushing the currency up and the central bank bringing it back to square one via its daily fixing. Nevertheless, the next few months are to be an uncertain period for the renminbi after the central bank intervened heavily in recent weeks to weaken its value. That has led some analysts to conclude that Beijing is easing monetary policy to cushion the slowing economy.

去年大部分时间里，人民币面临强大的升值压力，其汇率经常升至1%每日交易区间的高端，但中国央行次日又把中间价恢复到原来的水平。其结果是，人民币汇率走势呈一条略微向上的直线，几乎没有什么波澜。即使在拓宽交易区间后，人民币走势也很容易落入相同的模式：市场推高其汇率，但央行通过每日设定的中间价使其原地踏步。然而，接下来的几个月将是一个不确定的时期，原因是中国央行近几周为了压低人民币汇率而大举干预汇市。这导致一些分析师得出结论称，北京方面正在放宽货币政策，以便为正在减速的经济提供缓冲。