President Xi Jinping is advocating for the use of the Chinese currency, renminbi, as a global reserve currency, in unreported remarks made since 2024 but were made public on Saturday amid a decline of the U.S. dollar.

Qiushi, China’s ruling communist party journal, published Mr Jinping’s comments on Saturday amplifying long-feared suspicions that the Chinese president had big ambitions for the renminbi to overtake the U.S. dollar as a global currency of transaction.

In his remarks, Mr Jinping pushed for the upgrade of the renminbi into a “powerful currency” to be “widely used in international trade, investment and foreign exchange markets, and attain reserve currency status”.

Mr Jinping further stressed the need for  a “powerful central bank” to “attract global capital and exert influence over global pricing.”

The Chinese leader made the remarks while delivering a speech to the nation’s top officials in 2024 which was only availed to the public on Saturday.

Mr Jinping’s comment dogged President Donald Trump’s blitz of tariff and aggressive change in the leadership of the Federal Reserve, which both contributed to the dollar’s slump on the international market.

Russia-Ukrainian war in 2022 pushed the renminbi to the second-largest trade finance currency in the world. Still, the Chinese currency remained largely limited in official reserves.

As of September 2025, the dollars stood at 57 per cent of global currency reserves, the euro approximately 20 per cent, while the renminbi was a distant sixth, at barely 1.93 per cent, according to the IMF.

Financial analysts have long called for the appreciation of the Chinese currency, arguing its gross undervalue was costing other nations particularly the European nations.The calls intensified after China recorded a trade surplus of $1.2 trillion last year.

Chinese manufacturers and factories enjoy patronage from across the world including African nations such as Nigeria where many businesses shop in bulk and ship products across the sea. Popular Chinese shopping app, Temu, also debuted in many nations attracting huge patronage due to the low prices of goods.