China Has Announced Plans For A World CurrencyMichael Snyder What you are about to see is rather startling, but it shouldnt be a surprise. When it comes to economics and finance, the Chinese have always been playing chess while the Western world has been playing checkers. Sadly, we have gotten to the point where checkmate is on the horizon. On Wednesday, I came across an excellent articleby Simon Black. What he had to say in that article just about floored me This is the photograph of that billboard that he posted with his article And most everyone has assumed that Chinese currency would soon play a larger role in international trade. But things have moved so rapidly in recent years that now a very large chunk of the financial world actually expects the renminbi to replace the dollar as the primary reserve currency of the planet someday. The following comesfrom CNBC And without a doubt we are starting to see the beginnings of a significant shift. Just consider this excerpt from a recent Reuters report The U.S. dollar wont be replaced overnight, but things are changing. Of course the truth is that the Chinese have been preparing for this for a very long time. The Chinese refuse to tell the rest of the world exactly how much gold they have, but everyone knows that they have been accumulating enormous amounts of it. And even if they dont explicitly back the renminbi with gold, the massive gold reserves that China is accumulating will still give the rest of the planet a great deal of confidence in Chinese currency. But dont just take my word for it. Consider whatAlan Greenspan has had to say on the matter Meanwhile, the Chinese have also been accumulating a tremendous amount of U.S. debt. At this point, the Chinese own approximately 1.3 trillion dollars worth of our debt, and that gives them a lot of power over our currency and over our financial system. Someday if the Chinese wanted to undermine confidence in the U.S. dollar and in the U.S. financial system, they have a lot of ammunition at their disposal. And it isnt just all of that debt that gives China leverage. In recent years, the Chinese have been buying up real estate, businesses and energy assets all over the United States at a staggering pace. For a small taste of what has been taking place, check out theYouTube video posted below For much, much more on this trend, please see the following articles -The Chinese Are Acquiring Large Chunks Of Land In Communities All Over America -Meet Your New Boss: Buying Large Employers Will Enable China To Dominate 1000s Of U.S. Communities -Not Just The Largest Economy Here Are 26 Other Ways China Has Surpassed America -The Chinese Want To Spend Billions Constructing A 600 Acre China City In New York State -45 Signs That China Is Colonizing America -Will Detroit Be The First Major Chinese City In The United States? On a purchasing power basis, the size of the Chinese economy has already surpassed the size of the U.S. economy. And there are lots of signs of trouble ahead for the U.S. economy at this point. I like howBrandon Smith put it in one recent article In addition, things continue to look quite bleak for Europe. Once upon a time, many expected the euro to overtake the U.S. dollar as the primary global reserve currency, but that didnt happen. And in recent months the euro has been absolutely crashing. On Wednesday, it hit the lowest point that we have seen against the dollarin more than a decade As the U.S. and Europe continue to struggle, China is going to want a significantly larger role on the global stage. And as the billboard in Thailand suggests, they are more than willing to step up to the plate. So will the road to the future be paved with Chinese currency? Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below This article first appeared here at the Economic Collapse Blog. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here. 