The Economist magazine forecast in a recent issue that a future multiple reserve currency system could include the Chinese yuan: "The world might drift toward a multiple reserve currency system shared by the dollar, the euro and the yen, or indeed the yuan at some time in the future."
Meanwhile, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported that 37 percent of the Chinese business executives who responded to a survey believed that the yuan would become a "key currency" by 2020. It may not be surprising, therefore, that a paper outlining a strategy to make the yuan an international key currency was presented at a recent conference of the Chinese Society of World Economy.
As for the yen, the paper said it would remain an international currency but would not become a key currency because Japan (1) is unlikely to possess sufficient national power in terms of politics, the scale of its economy and market size in the years to come; (2) has not succeeded in internationalizing the yen due to a lack of currency strategies; and (3) faces lingering animosities dating back to World War II.