RMB Internationalization and Financing Belt-Road Initiative: An MMT Perspective

The Belt Road Initiative (BRI) is a global development plan that sets out to invest trillions of dollars in infrastructure within the coming decade in over 60 countries. Financing the BRI has come mainly from the Chinese government funded development banks, commercial banks and investment funds. BRI investment has done primarily in the US dollar, which is not a sovereign currency for the Chinese government. As China’s current account surplus narrowed and foreign exchange reserves shrank, the affordability of the BRI becomes questionable. From the Modern Money Theory’s perspective, it is much more desirable, or even necessary, to use the Chinese RMB as the main investment vehicle currency. However, despite the RMB internationalization efforts by the Chinese government in the recent years, especially after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, RMB internationalization is still quite limited. Financing BRI presents a difficult dilemma for China because on the one hand, continuing with dollar investment requires much capital account and exchange rate management, which hinders RMB internationalization; on the other hand, RMB internationalization, which is desirable for BRI investment, requires more liberalization of the capital account and exchange rate regime. Based on the Modern Money Theory, this paper reveals some of the implications of the connections between RMB internationalization and BRI financing.