No matter the outcome, there will be certainty about whether Britain will remain in the European Union or exit the European superstate on June 23.
There is uncertainty about what will happen if Britain chooses to exit, but many financial analysts think there is a bigger problem hiding in plain sight, one that will take longer to solve, with less clear-cut outcomes.
“We believe China’s ongoing stealth devaluation of the renminbi is far more important for the global economy,” writes Albert Edwards of investment bank Société Générale. He is talking about the drop in the Chinese yuan against a basket of currencies, especially since the beginning of the year, while the yuan remained more or less stable against the dollar.
The yuan is down 10 percent against this basket—consisting of the U.S. dollar, the euro, the pound sterling, and the Japanese yen—since last August, the first time the Chinese central bank sharply lowered its fixed exchange rate, in a move that surprised markets at the time.
