China sees the yuan vs. dollar rivalry like Pepsi vs. Coke, expert says — ‘never the market leader, but serviceable in a pinch’
Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and contrary to popular belief, Beijing doesn’t want the yuan to dethrone the dollar as the world’s dominant currency, according to a top China scholar. While China has been trying to internationalize the yuan, also known as the renminbi, it doesn’t want the obligations that come with being the global reserve currency, Zongyuan Zoe Liu, senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relation, wrote in Foreign Affairs this month. To truly take the dollar’s place would require open capital markets, which would threaten the Communist Party’s control over who gets capital and how, she explained. That’s as many elites rely on offshore dollar holdings as a type of insurance against domestic political persecution. Since China actually prefers to keep the dollar on top, the real reason for promoting the yuan abroad is to prevent the U.S. from weaponizing the financial system against it, Liu added, similar to how Russia was shut out after it invaded Ukraine in 2022. A yuan network that’s international enough, even without being dominant, could bypass any dollar-based sanctions the U.S. might impose in the future. “Placing a respectable second, or even a consequential third, would suffice to break the dollar’s effective monopoly and constrain the United States’ ability to impose financial sanctions unilaterally, while saving China the effort and cost of sustaining currency supremacy,” she said. “From Beijing’s perspective, the mission is to establish the renminbi as the Pepsi to the dollar’s Coca-Cola: never the market leader, but serviceable in a pinch and more than capable of keeping the dominant incumbent honest.” (For what it’s worth, Pepsi has actually fallen further behind Coke in the cola wars and was dealt a major symbolic defeat recently when KFC said it would replace PepsiCo soft drinks with Coca-Cola’s products at its 3,700 U.S. restaurants.) So far, China facilitates renminbi use among firms in more than a hundred countries and across a growing array of commodity markets. As of June, its Cross-Border Interbank Payment System had 1,829 participants who could send payments to more than 5,200 banks in 191 countries. But that’s just a small fraction of what the U.S.-dominated system processes, Liu said, adding that a global currency also entails pricing, financing, risk transfer, and reinvestment. Chinese exporters still invoice in dollars and convert them to yuan just before brining them into China. But Beijing is promoting “China prices,” or yuan benchmarks on domestic commodity exchanges and has succeeded with lithium, she noted. The financing stage is gaining momentum too as Chinese banks have more than doubled their yuan lending to overseas borrowers between 2023 and mid-2026. The People’s Bank of China has also reached currency swap agreements with 32 foreign central banks and monetary authorities.