I think its worth pointing out that China thinks it can open a futures contract with a pegged currency. In other words, the exchange rate for the yuan is a giant red flag for Chinese and American leadership.

If the value of the dollar to the yuan were to slip by 30%, and stay there for months, even years, millions of jobs would come back to America. China is absolutely dependent on this perverse exchange rate condition in order to maintain their trade surplus. The Chinese trade surplus is not normal economics, and is based on a conscious policy shift resulting from the Asian banking crisis of 1997. Hundreds of thousands of American MBA's hung their careers on this policy shift since then and continue to rely upon this "lets make it in China" idea.

If China wants to create a benchmark for the yuan, that will only increase the value of the yuan. Such a benchmark would show that the pegging of the yuan currency is unsustainable. Worse from the perspective of Chinese leadership, their trade surplus with the US could be wiped out completely if the yuan becomes too strong.

Seeing the dollar lose it's crown would probably be the best thing that could ever happen to the American economy, particularly the middle class. No longer would the MBA's of American feel compelled to ship jobs overseas when the Chinese worker finds that they are making wages comparable to the America worker.

The possibility that China could create a benchmark oil futures contract that sidesteps the dollar completel, would be a very welcome development for the American middle class, and perhaps, not so much for Wall Street.

I have a suspicion that China wants this more than they want their trade surplus with the world. Pride may indeed be their downfall, as it was ours in America.