If the Obama administration has become more relaxed about China's currency policy, with the Treasury widely expected not to name Beijing as a “currency manipulator” in its forthcoming report to Congress, the same is also true in Asia.

Given the effective peg that Beijing now operates against the US dollar, the Chinese renminbi has depreciated substantially in recent months against many of its neighbours, giving Chinese companies an advantage in shrinking export markets. However, so far, this has prompted surprisingly little public concern in Asian capitals.

The main focus in Asia remains the dollar, which many see as a direct threat to their trade prospects in the US, rather than the Chinese currency. Moreover, any disquiet in Asia about the renminbi being undervalued has been tempered by the positive impact of the rebound in China's economy and the confidence that this has helped generate.

Although the renminbi has depreciated by 10 per cent against a basket of currencies since March, according to Barclays Capital, the impact has been far from uniform – with the yen up just under 12 per cent over the last 12 months and the Australian dollar 40 per cent higher. The Thai baht is up 2 per cent and the Taiwanese dollar less than 1 per cent.

Chinese demand for commodities has boomed in recent months, the result of public investment in infrastructure and stockpiling, which has meant a strong rebound in imports in the second and third quarter from Latin America and Africa. Within Asia, Indonesia has been a beneficiary of commodity demand. The biggest winner has been Australia, which has benefited from soaring purchases of iron ore and coal.

China has also been importing increasing amounts of components and capital goods in recent months, good news forTaipei and Seoul.

In South Korea, many companies have production centres in China, so they stand to profit from a weaker renminbi. “The weaker won prompted many Korean companies to increase production at local factories while reducing volume in Chinese plants last year.

But the won's recent appreciation against the renminbi is prompting them to reverse the trend and increase production in Chinese factories,” says Choi Won-rak, global management team manager at the Federation of Korean Industries.

Taiwanese businessmen say the combination of a weaker US dollar and government stimulus spending in China has helped drive a recovery in the technology sector in Taiwan.

In Japan, which also has substantial manufacturing capacity in China, there has been a fevered debate about the possibility of intervention to prop up the dollar, but little attention has been paid to the renminbi's weakness. Its decline makes Japanese exports more expensive for Chinese consumers, but it also makes Chinese imports cheaper. Hirohisa Fujii, the new finance minister, has said that a stronger yen could give shoppers more buying power, which could boost consumer spending, reducing reliance on exports for economic growth.

Glenn Maguire, the Hong Kong-based chief Asia economist at Société Générale, says Japan may be moving closer to accepting a stronger yen as a positive development. “Increasingly the bulk of their spending is on food or on clothing, which are imported, so the stronger yen makes these goods cheaper,” he says. “Although there are some painful adjustments in the short term, in the long term it's actually beneficial for society.”

However, the weaker renminbi is causing bigger problems for the smaller, more open economies in south-east Asia. This is especially true for those with a manufacturing base that competes directly with China, where companies enjoy a competitive currency and better logistics. Malaysia and Philippines fall into this category.