The internationalisation of the renminbi is without precedent. No currency has ever been internationalised before its capital account has been fully opened, and certainly not on the scale of the renminbi.
The experience of the US dollar, sterling, euro and yen offers little by way of historical guidance, while the rapid growth of the eurodollar in London during the 1960s and 1970s also differs in some important respects. The Eurodollar was a market solution to circumvent capital restrictions in the US. By contrast, the internationalisation of the renminbi is an attempt by mainland Chinese authorities to control the market for their own purposes.
This leaves observers...