Will a Chinese-led move away from the petrodollar also mean a change in the relative positions of US and China? From Golem XIV at golemxiv.co.uk:
Will the rise of China mean the fall of America? In a word, yes. Although decline might be more accurate.
Why do I think this? Because China is about to launch the PetroYuan and when it does the demand for dollars and for dollar denominated debt will shrink. When it does, I question whether the world will be so sanguine about the level of debt that America carries. If that happens then the value of the dollar is in question.
At the moment no matter what level of debt America carries, other countries need dollars. Dollars to pay for oil, since oil is traded in dollars. Dollars for their financial system so their banks can settle contracts for goods and services traded in dollars.
But over the last few years China has been systematically putting in place everything it needs to launch the Yuan as not only a rival to the dollar in trading and settling oil contracts but as a rival to the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. At the moment the only rival to the dollar is the Euro. I think it fair to say the relationship between the two currencies and their issuing powers, has been… ‘delicate’. The news that Sadam Hussein was going to start trading his oil in Euros came just a few months before America and its lap dog GB, decided Sadam was a threat to world peace and went to war with him. Something similar happened to Colonel Qaddafi.
Under Qaddafi Libya’s currency was backed by the country’s large holdings of gold and silver. This had allowed Qaddafi to finance, for example, the entire construction of the Great Man Made River without going to Western banks for a single loan. Libya was debt free and owned its own resources and infrastructure. Obviously a very unsatisfactory state of affairs for any third world country to get ideas so far above their station. Worse, he had a very public plan which he had laid before the Pan African Congress, to create a pan African currency backed by gold and silver to be launched by 2023. It was not too long before Hilary Clinton arrived in a freshly bombed Libya and crowed to CBS, “We came, we saw, he died.” Charming woman. I was only surprised she didn’t say “Mission accomplished.”
To continue reading: China’s rise, America’s fall
STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC 
USA has manipulated the markets, abused its dominant role so much that many countries wanted to have less and less dependence on it. They will stick to gold (like Russia, China, India, Vietnam) and any currency but US dollars.
They only keep just enough amount of dollars for international trading, knowing that US dollars depreciate at 4% (the targeted inflation aim of US Fed Res Bank). Who wants to keep a depreciating asset unnecessarily?
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