WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)  The Treasury Department declined again Wednesday to designate China as a currency manipulator, despite the increasing pressure from Congress.

In its latest semiannual report to Congress on the currency policies of countries around the world, the department reiterated its complaint that the recent appreciation in the Chinese yuan was “too limited and modest,” but said that the government’s heavy intervention did not meet the legal definition for currency manipulation.

China should “significantly accelerate” the appreciation of the yuan’s effective exchange rate “to minimize the risks that are being created for China itself as well as the world economy, of which China is an increasingly critical part,” the report said.

China abandoned a strict currency peg in July 2005, but it maintains a trading band around an unspecified basket of currencies that includes the dollar and euro.