1. The first stage: Bretton Woods system. At the end of World War II in July 1944, representatives from 44 countries including the United States and the United Kingdom gathered in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to discuss the postwar global economic and financial governance structure. The meeting decided to establish the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the predecessor of the World Bank), and establish an international monetary system based on gold and with the US dollar as its core, also known as the Bretton Woods system. Under the Bretton Woods system, the U.S. dollar was directly linked to gold, and national currencies were pegged to the U.S. dollar. Gold is convertible to the United States at an official price of $35 per ounce, with an adjustable fixed exchange rate system. This system has played a certain role in promoting the post-war global economic recovery and the development of international trade, but it has internal contradictions and flaws that cannot be overcome.

In order to adapt to the development of global trade, the United States needs to export U.S. dollars by maintaining a long-term trade deficit. However, the continued growth of U.S. dollar supply will make it difficult to maintain the fixed exchange rate relationship between the U.S. dollar and gold, affecting the value and reputation of the U.S. dollar; In order to maintain the stability of the dollar, the United States needs to maintain a long-term trade surplus. This contradiction between ensuring liquidity supply and currency stability was discovered by American economist Robert Triffin, so it is called the "Triffin problem."

In the 1960s, as the United States shifted from a goods trade surplus to a deficit, the global U.S. dollar entered a surplus relative to gold, and a crisis of confidence in the U.S. dollar broke out. Countries sold dollars to the United States in exchange for gold, causing a massive outflow of U.S. gold reserves. The pressure on the U.S. government to exchange gold for U.S. dollars is increasing day by day. In order to alleviate the pressure on the outflow of U.S. gold, make up for the shortage of international reserve assets, and ensure sufficient liquidity in the developing global trade and financial markets, the International Monetary Fund established the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) in 1969. ).

2. The second stage: post-Bretton Woods system.

However, the birth of SDR cannot solve the "Triffin problem" of the US dollar. In 1971, the U.S. government was forced to announce that it would decouple the U.S. dollar from gold. In 1973, major national currencies decoupled from the U.S. dollar and shifted to a floating exchange rate system. At this time, the Bretton Woods system officially collapsed. Since July 1974, the value of the SDR has been determined by a currency basket consisting of the currencies of the 16 largest trading nations at the time. In order to simplify and facilitate pricing, by January 1981, the SDR was determined by a basket of five currencies: the U.S. dollar, German mark, French franc, pound sterling, and Japanese yen, with the weight of each currency in the basket adjusted every five currencies.

After the birth of the euro in January 1999, the euro replaced the German mark and the French franc in the status and weight of the SDR. Despite the disintegration of the Bretton Woods system, the SDR did not become a major reserve asset. Before the international financial crisis broke out in 2008, SDR accounted for only 0.5% of global international reserves, and the US dollar still dominated the international monetary system. This is closely related to the huge U.S. economic aggregate, the U.S. dollar becoming the main settlement currency for international trade and financial transactions, and the U.S. dollar's long-term inertia as the world's main reserve currency.

3. The third stage: the emergence of a diversified international monetary system. In 2008, the international financial crisis broke out and spread rapidly around the world, once again highlighting the internal flaws and systemic risks of the US dollar-dominated international monetary system. The international community's calls for monetary system reform are getting louder and louder. After the crisis, the rapid rise of emerging economies and their increasing contribution to global economic growth also required them to gain more say in the international monetary system, and the international monetary system began to transform toward diversification.