McDowell Weighs in on Russia’s Increased Use of China’s Yuan in Wall Street Journal Article

March 1, 2023

The Wall Street Journal

Daniel McDowell

Political Science Department

Comparative Politics/International Relations Speaker Series

China

Economic Policy

Foreign Policy

Russia

The Wall Street Journal

Daniel McDowell

Russia’s economy, restricted from Western financial networks and the U.S. dollar, has embraced a burgeoning alternative: the Chinese yuan. The Chinese currency’s rise inside Russia deepens ties between two countries that have long rivaled each other for global influence but have grown closer amid shared discontent with the West.

While Russia’s use of the yuan doesn’t mean the end of dollar supremacy, it may usher in the beginning of a more fractured system that could ultimately blunt the U.S.’s ability to use financial sanctions as a weapon, says Daniel McDowell, associate professor of political science.

“The more countries you force to find those alternatives,” McDowell says, “effectively what you’re going to do is increase economies of scale and experience in those areas.”

Read more in the Wall Street Journal article, “Russia Turns to China’s Yuan in Effort to Ditch the Dollar.”