This year’s near-doubling of the yuan’s share as a global payments currency has largely gone unremarked because the figures are still rather modest and forecasts of the dollar’s impending demise have so far turned out to be greatly exaggerated.
Besides, the world’s attention is fixated on China’s wobbly domestic growth. The yuan as a vehicle for the nation’s geopolitical ambitions is getting sidelined, much like the tapering enthusiasm for President Xi Jinping’s $1 trillion Belt and Road project.
Yet, ignoring the yuan’s rise might be a mistake. Going by the experience of treasurers at multinational firms, Beijing’s two-decade-old project to put its own legal tender in the race for preeminence — and the exorbitant privilege that comes with it — seems to have got some momentum.