On November 31, 2015 International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced that the Chinese renminbi has entered the IMF’s basket of currencies for the special drawing right (SDR), promoting the Chinese renminbi as one of the world’s leading currencies. The criteria of being the IMF’s basket of currencies regard the one’s trade quantum in the whole world and the liberalization of financial system. However, most scholars argue that China does not satisfy the second criterion. If so, why would IMF and the US like to support the renminbi in the SDR? This paper attempts to analyze the interactions among IMF, the US, and China with the two-level game framework. I argue that for the US, the renminbi in the SDR will pull China into international affairs and encourage appreciation, balancing trade deficits between the US and China; for IMF, the renminbi in the SDR can solve the insufficient problem in international currency in the short-run; for China, the renminbi in the SDR can increase financial influences over developing countries and moderate domestic inflation problem. When these conditions are ripe, the renminbi in the SDR is assured.
