U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will press Chinese officials next week to adopt a more market-determined exchange rate policy, and the Obama administration thinks further yuan appreciation would help the global economy, Treasury officials said on Friday.
The comments came ahead of Lew's planned meetings on Monday with top officials in Beijing.
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China's yuan was devalued sharply in the 1990s and for years China intervened heavily in exchange markets to keep it weak, raising complaints from U.S. manufacturers.
Since 2005, China has let its currency appreciate by about 25 percent, and the Treasury officials repeated statements made in February that China recently appeared to be intervening a lot less.
Even so, Lew will urge his Chinese counterparts to be more transparent about their actions in currency markets, one official said.
U.S. officials traveling to Beijing will also bring up U.S. concerns with China's regulatory policies for cyber security, which one of the officials said were not consistent with the principals of free and open trade.