China's role in East‐Asian monetary integration

Abstract

Abstract Most proposals for East‐Asian monetary cooperation assign a special role to the Japanese yen as anchor currency. We focus on the potential role of the Chinese renminbi. Since China will assume the role of the dominant economy in the region and become a more important destination for Asian products than Japan eventually, this development assigns a special role to the Chinese currency. It is rather unlikely that the renminbi will assume a dominant role immediately, but a comparison with the European monetary integration process suggests designing a system where the relative weight of the renminbi increases gradually. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.