Beijing Youth Daily, a popular newspaper in China's capital, relies on a diet of starlets and sports to attract readers. So it was a telling moment when it gave its front page over to exchange rate policy one day last month and announced in blazing tabloid headlines that a revaluation of the renminbi was in the works: "The countdown has begun!"

As the attention of the popular press attests, China's leaders are preparing their people for an end to the policy of pegging the renminbi at Rmb8.28 to the US dollar, the bedrock of economic policy for a decade. Changing the currency regime would have big implications for China's economic management and, some in Beijing think, for its development strategy predicated on foreign direct investment inflows and export-led growth.