Monitor | Four reasons the yuan will struggle to gain acceptance
Open and well-regulated markets, transparent governance and solid banking system needed for Chinese currency’s rise to dominance
Talk to financiers in Hong Kong and you will get the impression that it is the manifest destiny of China's yuan to displace the US dollar as the world's dominant currency, probably within the next decade or two.
You can see why they think so. The fast growth of China's economy, its ascent as a trading power, the rapid spread of the yuan as a trade currency and Beijing's programme of financial liberalisation all appear to support their belief.
Factor in America's monstrous deficits and intractable budget disputes, and it seems as if the yuan's rise to pre-eminence as the world's currency of choice for international trade and investment can only be a matter of time.
Yet a look at the economic history books advises caution. Over the past 50 years, other currencies - including the deutschemark, its successor the euro, and the Japanese yen - had been tipped to steal the dollar's crown.
All failed. And the obstacles the yuan will have to overcome to unseat the dollar are just as formidable as those that defeated the three earlier pretenders.
In the 1970s, many saw the deutschemark as a competitor to the dollar. Germany's economy was growing quickly, and by the early 1980s, it had captured a 10 per cent share of global commerce, roughly the same as China today.