Leveraging the Yuan; Chinese currency-petro trade; China builds man made islands

China wants to convert Yuan into the main petroleum trade currency.  Currently, the U.S. currency has command over that.

China has been building manmade bases over some of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea since 2014, much to the annoyance of other powers in the region—the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Japan all lay claim to parts of the sea, which is a valuable trade passage and fishing ground. On Monday the Center for Strategic & Int'l Studies (CSIS) confirmed the completion of another Chinese man-made island, China’s Fiery Cross Island, and the new land is now ready for use as a military base.

The U.S. estimates China has added 3,200 acres of land on 7 features (which includes rocky outcrops and reefs) over the past 3 years, although China denies it is militarizing the islands it has built. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said that the defense equipment on the islands was there to maintain "freedom of navigation". Fiery Cross reef, once merely a mass of rocks and a coral reef, now has a runway and several other buildings, including basketball. The island joins several other military bases in the South China Sea, adding extra aerial capacity to existing naval resources and mobile missile launchers. They have 4 installations that range 75-400 miles off Chinese coast.