Sorry, we’ve been talking past each other apparently. I believe China is strong arming Russia into using the yuan when Russia would prefer anything else. My belief is that this is a sign of how weak the Russian economy is, not a sign of yuan strength.

I 100% believe that the BRICS signatories want to see the dollar dethroned. I’m not even stating an opinion on whether it should be or not. My position is simple, illiberal currencies are not a viable alternative for international trade. A prerequisite for the yuan taking over as reserve currency is it becoming more liberal. That’s not currently the trend.

And fwiw I’ve been both a fx trader and worked in treasury operations for an international. I’ve dealt specifically with moving yuan.

You are right about yuan and it's also the reason why USD is hard to dethrone. Russia even made it amply clear that it won't use yuan for the reasons you mentioned. A proposal was to use basket of currency or a new currency backed by precious metals.

Pretty sure one of the above will happen over the next few years

The US is one of the largest global holders of precious metals. You could perhaps replace it with a rare earth basket but that is effectively the yuan…

> The idea that Russia is holding a gun to China's head just doesn't make sense.

You are absolutely right, because it is the other way around. China doesn't want to have problem with US and EU for dealing with Russia in USD or EUR, so it demands Russia to trade in yuans. Russia is therefore forced to sell its' oil and gas for yuans for the price set by China. The only leverage out of that situation is to trade with India and Turkey in rupees and liras, but India and Turkey can't offer lots of goods only China can.