UpdateThe man who pushed for a global yuan - China's central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan
Central bank chief the brains behind plan to add renminbi to IMF currency basket
"Being radical or gradual is relative - [for] Western countries, being radical means you take approaches like shock therapy," Zhou Xiaochuan, then Bank of China vice-president, wrote in 1993. "But in socialist countries, it may mean you act like a Western gradualist."
Zhou's market-oriented gradualism is paying off. The International Monetary Fund's decision to add the yuan to its Special Drawing Rights basket is the latest recognition of the central bank governor's work as well as of China's growing economic might.
READ MORE: The rise of the renminbi: How adding China's yuan to IMF's SDR basket will spur the currency towards further reform
Zhou has been on the gradualist path for at least three decades. Those tumultuous years saw Zhou - now the longest-serving central bank governor among the world's major economies - emerge as the country's most trusted face in the financial field both at home and abroad.
"His name will be in the history book [on] when the renminbi grew in status and China made noticeable steps to liberalise its financial system - he has been one of the driving forces behind this," said Alan Wheatley, co-author of The Power of Currencies and Currencies of Power, which is centred on the yuan's international role.
Zhou is believed to have been at the centre of almost every change China has made to its financial system - from reshaping state banking to setting up the bond market to laying the foundations for the yuan to go global.
Just six months into his role as central bank chief in May 2003, Zhou attended a State Council meeting at which he gave a presentation to then Premier Wen Jiabao and other officials on reforming "technically bankrupt" state banks, according to Caijing magazine.