The world could soon see the dominance of the US dollar start to wane, amounting to a partial de-dollarization of the global economy, according to JPMorgan, but that doesn’t mean it’s at risk of being replaced by a competitor like the yuan.
In a recent note, strategists at the bank explained that even if China’s economy surpasses that of the US, it is still unlikely that the hegemony of the greenback would take much of a hit, and history suggests that any shift would happen at a glacial pace.
“While the US surpassed Great Britain as the world’s largest economy in the latter part of the 19th century, the US dollar is commonly perceived to have overtaken the British pound as the world’s foremost reserve currency only by the end of WWII,” JPMorgan strategists wrote. “Historical experience thus suggests that if China were to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy around 2030, dollar dominance may persist even into the second half of the 21st century.”
What’s more, the yuan could only gain if China relaxes capital controls, which for now doesn’t seem likely.