The People’s Money: How China is Building a Global Currency
Paola Subacchi, Columbia University Press, £30.00
I recall a meeting a few years ago devoted to the opportunities which would come from the internationalization of the renminbi, the Chinese currency. The room was buzzing and there was talk was of it going truly global and achieving the status of a reserve currency, like the dollar, the pound sterling or the euro.
Fast-forward to 2017 and the mood is more sombre. In The People’s Money – How China is Building a Global Currency, Paola Subacchi, director of the International Economics Department at Chatham House, concludes that the renminbi is not yet a full-fledged international currency; in fact, it is still what she calls a ‘dwarf currency’ which even local guides in Zambia refuse to accept as ‘good money’.
