The People′s or the World′s: RMB Internationalisation in Longer Historic Perspective

Abstract

Prognoses of China′s currency— Renminbi or RMB in short—going global have become a hotly debated topic in the economic and popular literature of late. While some analysts are tipping a gradual transformation of the RMB into the world′s next principal reserve currency in lieu of the US$, others contend that the deficiencies of China′s financial market will continue to preclude any such transformation for a long time to come. The aim of this paper is to survey the arguments put forward by either camp and to weigh into this debate not only through the prism of applied economic theory or political economy but also through the prism of economic history.