The third annual China Business Conference, held at Columbia Business School in April 2010, took as its theme "Fueling China's Sustainable Growth." A panel discussion on Capital Markets focused on China's still-developing debt market. But with a diverse group of speakers, the talk ranged widely, tackling topics such as the appreciation of the yuan, corporate bond issues and the outlook for commodity prices. Panelists included Robert Fallon, a finance professor and Asia expert at Columbia Business School; Dr. Jay Guo, Global Head of Fixed Income Quantitative Methodology for Interactive Data Co.; Dr. Yong Li, managing director at Midway Group; Shanquan Li, managing director at Oppenheimer Funds; and Pengfei Xie, a partner at hedge fund EIM.

There was general agreement among the panelists that the yuan, or RMB, should appreciate relative to the dollar. The panelists also agreed, however, that the United States shouldn't make public demands that China loosen the reins or brand the country a "currency manipulator."

Mr. Fallon first visited China in the late 1970s and has lived in Asia for 31 years. "When you have a problem with a friend, you don't publicly accuse that friend," Mr. Fallon said. "You cause them to lose face and they harden their position." He urged against trade sanctions, which "repudiate the reality that China and the United States are so interdependent economically," Mr. Fallon said. "Neither side really understands the degree to which this is true."