This week George Osborne announced steps to make London a global trading hub for China’s currency. If the internationalisation of the renminbi proceeds and the chancellor of the exchequer’s plan succeeds, London will – so it is hoped – again flourish as a leading financial centre. The nature of that flourishing could well differ from what we saw before 2008, but the prosperity will feel the same. Can it happen? Yes. Will it happen? That depends on a number of considerations. Will it be a good thing? Almost surely.
Too often, when observers say renminbi internationalisation will never happen, what they mean is they cannot imagine the renminbi – with less than 3 per cent share of world official currency reserves – undermining the exorbitant privilege enjoyed by the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
But neither internationalisation of China’s currency nor London’s benefiting from it require that to happen. These are both relatively modest undertakings. They hinge on just one thing: the currency simply has to become a force in global currency markets.