Historically, dollar hegemony is essentially the product of American strength, and it is also a concrete manifestation of American abuse of financial hegemony. As the saying goes, the wind and water turn. At present, with the weakening influence of the United States in the world, the economies of emerging markets and developing countries are indeed rising rapidly, the contrast between old and new forces in the world has undergone profound changes, and the trend of multipolarization in the world has become increasingly obvious, thus forming the fundamental driving force of dollarization, leading many countries to seek substitutes for the dollar, and the global monetary system is facing reshaping.
? In recent years, looking around the world, whether in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe or Asia-Pacific, more and more countries are implementing dollarization, and the global dollarization has ushered in a round of climax:
First of all, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar proposed to establish an "Asian Monetary Fund" during his recent visit to China; Second, The Export-Import Bank of China and Saudi Arabian National Bank reached the first RMB loan cooperation; Third, the Brazilian government announced that it would directly settle accounts with China in local currency; Fourth, India announced that its trade with Malaysia can be settled in Indian Rupee; Fifthly, on April 26th this year, Argentine Minister of Economy Felipe Massa held a press conference, announcing that Argentina would stop using US dollars to pay for goods imported from China, and instead use RMB for trade settlement.
Measures such as sharply reducing US debt and accelerating the diversification of foreign exchange reserves have led to the impact of the monopoly position of the US dollar in international settlement, thus making the trend of "dollarization" more and more obvious. According to relevant media reports, in recent years, many countries began to significantly reduce their holdings of US debt. Little friends all know that Japan is a die-hard ally of the United States, and its holdings of US Treasury bonds have remained high. Even so, Japan sold $224.5 billion in succession in 2022. Correspondingly, central banks are also accelerating the pace of gold reserves.
When the trend of "dollarization" in various countries is becoming more and more obvious, with the continuous emergence of China's overall strength, the RMB is extremely active in the international market; At the same time, in the process of accelerating the diversification of foreign exchange reserves, more and more countries are trying to break the monopoly of SWIFT in cross-border payment and settlement. For example, Russia's SPFS, EU's INSTEX and China's CIPS are all cross-border payment and settlement systems developed in domestic currencies, which perfectly bypass the dollar control and will break the monopoly of the original dollar and SWIFT system.
With the continuous strengthening of financial cooperation among countries in the region, it has reached a * * * consensus to weaken the dependence on the US dollar, which has contributed to dollarization. As the saying goes, there are no eternal friends, only eternal interests. In recent years, the regional financial cooperation between countries is very close, and it is common for countries to weaken their dependence on the US dollar in the cooperation region. For example, the BRICS countries stipulate to jointly formulate a relatively reliable alternative mechanism for international settlement in the cooperation region and explore the possibility of establishing an international reserve currency; At the same time, the SCO decided to increase the use of its own currency within the scope of cooperation; ASEAN member countries have also reached a consensus to gradually reduce their dependence on the US dollar through the local currency trading plan. In this way, with the continuous strengthening of regional financial cooperation among countries, "dollarization" financial cooperation between regions will be gradually established and improved, and related settlement modes such as currency coordination and cross-border payment will also be gradually improved. "dollarization" in the region will form a sense of * * *, which will gradually spill over and condense into a global dollarization wave, thus bringing great impact to the monopoly position of the dollar and the dollar payment system.
As the saying goes, a thin camel is bigger than a horse. Although there has been a wave of dollarization in the world, for a long time, the US dollar still occupies the channel of global currency settlement, payment and clearing, and has formed a complete US dollar network in international foreign exchange, international finance and other fields. In the short term, dollarization cannot be achieved overnight. In the long run, the diversification of monetary system is the general trend of world economic development and the inevitable trend of world multipolarization.
In my opinion, the global dollarization wave indicates that the international currency and international system will be profoundly reshaped, which will break the monopoly position of the dollar and be a precious opportunity for the adjustment of the world financial cycle. It is also an opportunity and a challenge for all countries. With the increasing national strength, it is even more necessary to seize the opportunity to accelerate the extensive use of RMB in cooperation areas, cross-border trade and direct investment scenarios, further expand the global influence of RMB and the channels of settlement, payment and liquidation, as well as the use scenarios of RMB in cross-border trade and direct investment.