the chinese RMB is pegged to the US dollar. the NT is kept awfully close to the US. which asian currencies float independent of the US dollar?
Last I heard, the Thai baht floats, or sinks, depending on the time period in question.
The Japanese yen floats, although their central bank has gone to great trouble to try to keep the dollar artificially high (much like China does).
I assume that both the Singapore and HK dollars float. IMHO right now the best bet is the Euro, alas.
HK dollar is pegged 7.8HK to 1US
Singapore is free floating, but is still pegged to a certain range by the central bankers to keep their export oriented industries afloat.
I’m not sure if there is even a single SE Asian country that doesn’t peg or semi peg its currency to the US dollar. Maybe the Phillipines?
CYA
Okami
The Taiwan dollar is not pegged. It is because of dollar reserves and US trade that keeps the Taiwan dollar fairly stable compared to the US dollar. Nevertheless it has floated between 29 and 35 since I’ve been here, which is a pretty decent range. Being correlated with the dollar is not necessarily good though. The Euro has been strengthening quite a bit, and there’s evidence that the value of the dollar could continue to erode. Taiwan also has Euro reserves, but not sure how big they are. My impression from news articles is that the bulk of foreign reserves is US dollars.