The Reuters article, U.S. Backs Off In Currency Dispute With China, gives the details.

The decision to delay the Treasury report appears to have been taken at the last minute. Industry sources had been primed to expect it by 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT) on Friday.

It was apparently right down to the wire, but finally someone came to their senses.  My supposition is that someone finally backed off from this politically popular measure that would have spelled disaster for the world economy.

To hear Klaus Schwab tell it in my previous post Interview of Klaus Schwab, Chairman, World Economic Forum, China is trying to boost internal consumption so that they won’t be so dependent on exports.  This will make it less disruptive to their own economy to let the value of their currency rise.  They have already let it rise at the rate of 1% per month over the last three months.

So it seems that China is carrying out the policy that we wish, and they are preparing to position themselves to carry it out even faster.  Would it be smart for the United States to pick a fight with its largest creditor because we want them to do something on our timetable instead of their own?  Would they be smart to disrupt their country by raising the value of their currency too fast just to please their largest borrower?

Whatever trouble we are in, we brought it on ourselves.

Perhaps 5,000 years of experience does allow the Chinese to act as the mature player in this comedy of errors.  With only a couple hundred years of history, we naturally take the part of the immature buffoon.