International Finance and Geopolitics

ABSTRACT Recent events, notably financial sanctions imposed on Russia by the USA and its geopolitical allies together with mounting economic and political tensions between the USA and China, have highlighted the role of geopolitics in shaping global monetary and financial relations. What these developments imply for the future will turn on how US–China tensions play out. In what follows I consider two scenarios: the status‐quo scenario and the breakdown‐in‐relations scenario. The former would see ongoing but very gradual international reserve and financial diversification from the dollar to the renminbi. The latter see a bifurcation of the international financial system into two silos centered on the respective currencies, with highly disruptive implications for the global economy.