AP Photo

The latest stop on the renminbi’s whistle-stop tour to international stardom is Taiwan. From now on, Taiwanese banks will be able to clear transactions in the “redback”, making Taipei another offshore renminbi centre alongside Hong Kong. With Singapore and London jostling to be next and China now firmly established as the world’s second-largest economy, surely it can only be a matter of time before much of the world’s trade is settled in renminbi and central banks are holding a substantial part of their reserves in the Chinese currency?