Markets expect traditional safe-haven currencies like the US dollar and Japanese yen to outperform amid the disruption.  A study by the China Finance 40 (CF40) Institute, found that currency performance  across 13 major economies, representing more than 70% of global gross domestic product (GDP), was driven largely by each country’s net exposure to imported oil and refined petroleum products.

Countries with the biggest oil import dependencies saw their currencies weaken the most. Brazil, a large net oil exporter, came out on top. Heavy oil importers such as Japan and the Republic of Korea faced the steepest currency pressure during the peak of the war.

CF40’s analysis suggests that the US dollar held up reasonably well, but mainly because America is now a net oil exporter. The Japanese yen, by contrast, behaved more like a risk asset, reflecting Japan’s heavy dependence on imported energy. The think tank argues that neither currency received the usual extra “flight-to-safety” premium that markets normally award the yen and the dollar during periods of uncertainty.

Then there’s the Chinese yuan. Even though oil now accounts for less than 20% of China’s total energy use, the country is still a net oil importer. Yet CF40 economists observed that the yuan remained stronger than China’s energy exposure alone would have suggested. This has led to the view that the yuan may be showing early signs of safe-haven behaviour: markets appear to be pricing in China’s economic stability, diversified energy base, and policy resilience.

Since the escalation of the Iran conflict and up to  15 May, the Chinese yuan strengthened by about three-quarters of 1% against the dollar. The Japanese yen, Swiss franc and euro all weakened. The pound sterling was roughly flat. More oil-exposed currencies, including the Republic of Korea’s won and the Indian rupee, fell much more sharply.

The yuan has not displaced established safe-haven currencies.  The renminbi still faces capital-account management, a smaller offshore liquidity pool, and the fact that most global reserves remain concentrated in dollar assets. A safe-haven currency is not created by a single episode.

But this episode may still matter because safe-haven status is built gradually through repeated crises that test economic resilience and policy credibility. In this case, markets are responding less to geopolitical fear than to energy exposure and the ability to absorb a physical supply shock. On those terms, China looks more resilient and even antifragile than many other large importers. Solar, wind, nuclear, hydro, coal, a growing electrified industrial base, and diversified oil imports give China a broader energy buffer than economies more tightly exposed to imported petroleum.

The broader implication from CF40’s research is that the definition of a safe-haven may be changing. Currency safety is often equated with the depth of Western financial markets, central-bank credibility, and the availability of highly liquid government securities. Those factors still matter enormously. Yet in a world of sanctions risk, fractured supply chains, commodity chokepoints, and weaponised financial infrastructure, markets may increasingly treat real-economy resilience as part of the safe-haven equation. A currency backed by industrial capacity, energy diversification, policy continuity, and a large domestic savings base can begin to acquire a different kind of defensive value.

This does not mean that the renminbi is already a full safe-haven currency. It means the yuan may be developing situational safe-haven characteristics. Its appeal may be strongest not in every risk-off episode, but in shocks where China’s structural advantages are directly relevant such as energy security, manufacturing continuity, trade, infrastructure capacity, and state balance-sheet flexibility.

The test now is whether this behaviour repeats. If future geopolitical shocks continue to produce yuan outperformance relative to China’s measured external challenges, then the current episode will look less like an anomaly and more like the early stage of a market reclassification. Safe-haven currencies are built through repeated periods of market stress, when investors learn which currencies hold up under pressure. The CF40 findings suggest that the renminbi may have passed one of those early crisis tests.

The US dollar remains the incumbent global haven. But as crises become increasingly shaped by energy, supply-chain and sanctions shocks, markets may place greater value on economies that can keep producing, trading and absorbing disruption. On these measures, the Chinese yuan’s performance deserves attention.

Michael Wang is a commentator at CGTN.