香港的一家粥铺同时接收港元、人民币和电子人民币，显示跨境人民币使用已具备现实基础而非仅是象征，且全港已有超过5,000家商户可受理e-CNY。中国并未接近将人民币变成主导储备货币，但在美元主导金融体系信任度下降时，人民币正在被塑造成可行替代方案。
最直接的信号出现在跨境银行间支付系统（CIPS）上：3月CIPS日均处理金额约为9200亿人民币，而去年日均仅为6800亿人民币；4月2日这一数字一度冲到1.2万亿人民币。分析人士认为伊朗原油贸易、霍尔木兹海峡过境收费及更广泛危机下的资本/投资流动部分推高了增量，但新规则放宽和更大范围的资金重定向也在其中作用，涨幅并非完全由伊朗单一因素解释。
从更广泛层面看，3月跨境债券、股票及其他投资组合交易达到了7120亿美元，同比增长40%，人民币在中国总体国际交易中的占比也升至56%以上。11月，mBridge在4,047笔交易中处理约555亿美元，超过95%为e-CNY；在对比下，CHIPS仍日均处理超过2万亿美元，SWIFT覆盖11500家机构（CIPS为1791家），但在1.4%的低利率（较美国高出两个多百分点）、香港金管局2000亿人民币流动性便利以及印度尼西亚在香港发行超90亿人民币、葡萄牙发行近20亿人民币债券等背景下，人民币在全球贸易融资中的占比升至80%以上。该叙事仍未达到官方修辞口径，但人民币无需取代美元也可在一定程度上削弱对美元体系的依赖。
A Hong Kong congee shop that accepts Hong Kong dollars, yuan, and e-CNY shows that cross-border yuan use is already practical rather than purely symbolic, with more than 5,000 merchants in the city already accepting e-CNY. China is still far from making the yuan a dominant reserve currency, but it is increasingly positioned as an alternative as confidence in dollar-centered finance weakens.
The sharpest signal is in CIPS: in March it processed about 920 billion yuan per day versus only 680 billion yuan per day on average last year, and on April 2 it reached 1.2 trillion yuan in one day. Analysts attribute part of the increase to Iran-linked oil trade, Hormuz passage payments, and broader crisis-driven portfolio and capital rerouting, but the surge is broader than one factor and also reflects new rule changes.
In March, cross-border bond, stock, and portfolio transactions reached 712 billion dollars, about 40% above last year’s monthly average, and yuan’s share of China’s overall international transactions exceeded 56%. In November, mBridge carried 55.5 billion dollars across 4,047 transactions with over 95% in e-CNY; while CHIPS still processes over 2 trillion dollars per day and SWIFT has 11,500 institutions versus CIPS’s 1,791, China’s 1.4% policy rate (over two percentage points below the U.S. level), the 200-billion-yuan HKMA liquidity facility, and new yuan issuance flows (Indonesia over 9 billion yuan and Portugal almost 2 billion yuan in Hong Kong) have helped yuan rise to more than 8% of global trade finance. The rhetoric still exceeds present depth, yet the yuan does not need to beat the dollar to function as an alternative.
Source: Xi Jinping wants a powerful currency. America’s war has helped
Subtitle: More countries are starting to use China’s payment infrastructure
Dateline: 4月 23, 2026 05:01 上午 | HONG KONG