It is interesting to discuss in such direction.

Comparing with RMB, Hong Kong dollar is a well recognised international currency which has high regard in the world. Now, Hong Kong is closely intergrating with South China in the region of Pearl River Delta. The combined strength of this region is huge which may be comparable to the economic size of California though there are no figures yet to support my statement.

Hong Kong dollar is being used in mainland daily money trading and its influence to China is beyond our imagination. Of course, the highest priority of China is to get RMB be internationalised. But, it will have great risk to China finance infrastructures which have not been tested by recent financial crisis. Say, is the State Department be ready to take on challenge of attack by Hedge Funds, like what happened in Hong Kong in 1998, or the other case that Sterling was attacked by Soros in early 1990s?

Personally, I do think that State Department has great reservation to take on the challege directly as they do not have experience before. Simply, they are not sure what the risk is. The collapse of RMB in front of the West is an unacceptable and intolerable humilitation to our senior leaders who were born and educated in a entirely different place than us. They are not used to lose face of this scale. From these considerations, there are already rumours that State Department may make use of Hong Kong dollar as a shelter for RMB or it acts as a first defence line of RMB for the process of internationaliztion. The details of this mechanism is yet to be disclosed.