The offshore yuan - which circulates outside mainland China and is traded more freely than in the domestic market - fell to 7.2386 against the dollar, according to financial news agency Bloomberg.
It is the lowest level since Hong Kong clearing houses were given the green light to open Chinese currency accounts freely in 2010.
The US central bank (Fed) is adopting an increasingly firm tone to fight inflation in the United States and could impose further interest rate hikes.
This trend has investors flocking to the dollar, sending it to record highs against other major currencies.
The Chinese currency has also become more expensive on the Chinese internal exchange market (“onshore”), climbing on Wednesday to 7.2297 yuan for the dollar, its lowest level for 14 years.
The yuan in China is not fully convertible and the country's central bank sets a central rate every day, on either side of which it allows a fluctuation of plus or minus 2%.
This depreciation comes despite recent interventions by the Chinese central bank.
In particular, in September it decided to lower the reserve requirement rate in foreign currencies for banks.
In concrete terms, this measure makes the sale of yuan and the purchase of dollars more costly for financial institutions.
The Chinese economy has been battered in recent months by anti-Covid restrictions (confinements, quarantines, mandatory PCR tests to go to a public place), drought in the south of the country and a real estate crisis.
With this relative depreciation of the yuan, “the central bank will at least have to pay greater attention than before” to the balance between its stimulus measures and its exchange rate policy, estimates the firm Tianfeng Securities in a note.
© 2022 AFP