The International Monetary Fund should hold off including China’s currency in a key policy basket in retaliation for recent hacking attacks on the US, two senators demanded yesterday.

In a letter to Christine Lagarde, the IMF’s managing director, senators Charles Schumer and Lindsey Graham said a recent attack on the records of 4m US government employees that has been blamed on China deserved to be punished.

“This recent cyber attack is one of China’s most brazen yet,” Mr Schumer said. “It is long past time for the international community to rally together and make crystal clear to the Chinese government that if they want to be treated as a leading nation on the global stage, then they need to start acting like it. Until China curtails their hacking operations, the IMF shouldn’t designate the [renminbi] as a reserve currency. We need to punish China’s bad behaviour, not reward it.”