China needs to build a “strong currency” that can become widely used in international trade, investment and foreign exchange markets, and reach the status of a global reserve.
The mission for the yuan was from excerpts of a speech by President Xi Jinping and published online on Saturday by Qiushi, the ruling Communist Party’s leading theoretical journal.
Xi made the speech in 2024 to provincial and ministerial officials about building the country into a global financial powerhouse.
Parts of Xi’s speeches are often reproduced to highlight national goals and this call comes as uncertainty about global financial markets and questions about the value of the US dollar are on the rise.
Over the past year, the yuan has generally strengthened against the dollar, although international investment banks argue that the Chinese currency remains below its long-term fair value.
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The excerpts published on the weekend outlined what Xi described as the core attributes of a financial powerhouse: a strong economic foundation, world-leading economic and technological strength, and a widely used and credible currency.
2dTom on February 1st, 2026 at 17:32 UTC »
In order to achieve this, China will have to significantly loosen its capital controls, and remove the managed float of the Yuan that keeps it banded to the dollar.
The chances of Xi allowing capital flight or allowing the Yuan to appreciate against the dollar are approximately 0%.
Xi is happy to talk a big game here, but I don't think that anything will end up really coming from this.
Upset_Scientist3994 on February 1st, 2026 at 17:26 UTC »
Interesting! This is first time they declared it.
But that would also mean that they would get certain problems what USA has with dollar currency as reserve currency as well gradually. For example de-industrialisation, due of currency being overvalued against all the rest currencies in world due of its reserve status. Earlier China used to do symmetrically opposite thing - manipulate value of its currency to be cheaper so that exports would be more competetive against rest. So it must be quite paradigm change coming, what will require also changes into economic overall structure of country. They seem to be underway.
Chogo82 on February 1st, 2026 at 17:25 UTC »
Making the yuan strong but pegging it to the dollar so China can still sell its goods at a cheap cost to the largest consumer base in the world is a paradox.