Yesterday in between classes, I was searching the Financial Times for a graph on the past Yuan/dollar exchange rates.  I remembered a Chinese devalutaion from 5.8 to 8.2 Yuan to the dollar.  I found this wonderful graph:
    

To look at the graph, is one thing, to understand the economics/finance is quite another.  A very important point that must be made is that China was not at parity before the 1994 devaluation of the yuan.  Furthermore, they were not really very open prior to that time either.  The Chinese economy continues to become more and more lilberalized and a great summary of the history of the renminbi from the Financial Times may be found here.  The article is called "Evolution of the Renminbi" and provides a brief but fairly thorough time line.
    An alternative source is to go here to my website and view the Word document that I have provided for my students perusal.  (The file can be downloaded from April 10 or April 14 - look for the title of the article.)