The serial financial crises have exposed deep fault lines in the international financial system to world scrutiny. It has led to a questioning of “the way things are” and prompted a search for a better and more stable global financial structure, probably one with multiple poles, echoing the restructuring taking place in the geopolitical order, the contours of which are very actively in the making. In which case, the debate on China’s rise will inescapably include the currency dimension, and with it, a sharpened focus on the jockeying for a greater share of the global spoils, on which a currency’s claim as an international reserve currency depends.