ON March 23， 2009， Zhou Xiaochuan， governor of the People's Bank of Chi-na， published his article，\"Thoughts on the Reform of the In-ternational Monetary System，\" which has attracted considerable public in-terest. What is the future of the RMB in the current gloomy global econom-ic environment? Xia Bin， president of the Financial Research Institute of the Development Research Center of the State Council， hit the mark with the comment， \"China is not pursuing the optimum target of complete interna-tionalization of the RMB， but a sub-optimal one: gradual regionalization of the currency.\"