Illustration: Chen Xia/GT

As China's inbound tourism market becomes hotter, the phenomenon has drawn attention from some foreign media outlets regarding its potential impact on the yuan. A Bloomberg report headlined "'Shop in China' travel boom risks complicating PBC's yuan math," for instance, claimed on Sunday that "a surge in foreign travelers to China risks complicating the Chinese central bank's efforts to ensure measured, orderly gains in the yuan."

In essence, the surge in foreign tourists underscores the increasing attractiveness of China's consumer market and the continuous enhancement of its openness to the world. Against this backdrop, shifts in foreign exchange inflows represent just one of many new dynamics the yuan encounters in its ongoing integration with the global economy. As China steadfastly advances high-standard opening-up, the yuan is poised to embrace broader prospects and opportunities rather than face heightened risks.

Global financial markets are experiencing heightened, persistent volatility driven by geopolitical risks, shifting tariff policies, and economic uncertainty. Domestically, China continues to advance steadily in promoting domestic demand, optimizing its industrial structure, and accelerating the shift to high-quality growth. Against this backdrop, the operating environment for the yuan's exchange rate has indeed grown more complex.

However, complexity has never been a problem for the yuan's development. The yuan's ability to calmly navigate various external variables is rooted in the solid economic fundamentals underpinning it. The long-term positive trajectory of the Chinese economy remains unchanged, with the advantages of its super-sized market increasingly evident and foreign trade continuing to expand.

Furthermore, the sufficiency of China's foreign exchange reserves and the flexible, effective policy toolkit of the central bank enable timely guidance of market expectations, ensuring that the yuan's exchange rate remains fundamentally stable at an equilibrium level, thereby safeguarding its development in an open environment.

More importantly, as China's high-standard opening-up advances, the international recognition of the yuan is rising. Its application scenarios in global trade, investment, and reserves are consistently broadening, laying a solid market foundation for the currency to navigate complex external conditions. The foreign exchange inflows associated with inbound tourism are a microcosm of this broader trend.

The internationalization of the yuan is advancing steadily, supported by multiple structural pillars. In the trade sector, a growing portion of bulk commodity imports, such as energy and minerals, is now settled in yuan. According to China Forex magazine, yuan settlement has been partially adopted in recent years in natural gas trade between China and countries including Qatar, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

In the investment sector, foreign investors' growing willingness to increase holdings of yuan-denominated financial assets has further boosted demand for cross-border yuan usage. Since the second half of 2024, foreign capital inflows into China's bond market have notably accelerated. As of the end of August 2025, a total of 1,170 foreign institutions from 80 countries and regions had accessed China's bond market, holding approximately 4 trillion yuan ($576 billion) in bonds, a clear reflection of deepening global confidence in yuan assets, according to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

Additionally, currency cooperation among central banks has provided the global market with stable and sufficient yuan liquidity, effectively expanding the scope of yuan acceptance and usage. These developments collectively underscore the international community's confidence in the Chinese economy and its broadening acceptance of the yuan's role as an international currency.

Fundamentally speaking, the internationalization of the yuan has always moved in tandem with China's opening-up, and it has been deeply integrated with global economic development. Amid an international environment fraught with changes and uncertainties, the deeper impetus for this internationalization stems from a naturally growing global market demand - for yuan assets and yuan-denominated settlement - that accompanies the expansion of China's economic and trade prowess.

At its core, this trend reflects the endogenous needs of market participants worldwide to lower transaction costs, mitigate foreign exchange risks, and optimize resource allocation. It is precisely this path anchored in the real economy - rooted in tangible trade and genuine demand - that not only consolidates the foundation for the yuan's development but also contributes valuable certainty to the world.

While the internationalization of the yuan will be a long-term endeavor, its direction is clear and its pace steady. As China unswervingly advances high-standard opening-up, the yuan, backed by its strengthening economic foundations, improving institutional design, and accumulating market trust, demonstrates resilience in navigating complex situations. The endogenous momentum, stemming from China's high-quality development and deepening integration, will not only underpin the stability of the yuan but also propel it toward a more constructive role in the evolving global monetary landscape.