You read or hear that recently China devalued its currency, but just what did they devalue: was it the yuan or was it the renminbi?
The answer is yes..... or both.
The yuan is the primary denomination of China's currency, which is officially called the renminbi. As this site says,
Renminbi — abbreviated RMB — is the formal term most often used by Chinese officialdom to refer to the currency. ... Literally, it means “People’s Currency.” But it’s a too stuffy for everyday use. “No one says RMB,” Cheng Li, a senior fellow at Brookings told MarketBeat.
It seems... there’s not a really good equivalent to renminbi in American English, maybe something like “legal U.S. tender.” Yuan is renminbi, just like the dollar is legal U.S. tender — but so are dimes, nickels and quarters.
The yuan is the actual unit. It’s pretty much the equivalent to “dollar.” It’s more likely to be used in everyday interactions. Further down the slang spectrum is “kuai,” which is sort of like saying “a buck,” here in the states.