Whenever China’s economy swooned in recent downturns, its currency never buckled. It held steady, or strengthened, even as China’s neighbors or trading partners scrambled to cut the value of their own currencies to deal with the fallout. With the Chinese renminbi now taking its biggest plunge in decades, the worry is that the country’s already slowing economy is even worse off than reported and that the government is panicking. On Thursday, China allowed the renminbi to weaken significantly for a third consecutive day. The situation is shaking the aura of supremacy surrounding President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party, which has portrayed a sense of ultimate authority. But the Chinese government’s response to the country’s financial […]