Dissonant voices challenging the US dollar's status as the global reserve currency are not likely to become the mainstream voices at the Group of Eight (G8) summit which starts Wednesday, a top Chinese official said.

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　　France and Russia have urged a discussion and there were reports about China's calling for debate on a new global reserve currency at the meeting. But Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister He Yafei told reporters in Rome on Sunday that the dollar would remain pre-eminent for "many years to come".

　　Many people interpreted He's remarks as words to reassure Washington, as the debate is highly sensitive that it would rekindle market fears about the dollar's value.

　　The dollar's reserve status depends on emerging markets' sustained willingness to buy US liabilities rather than switching to the euro or the International Monetary Fund's Special Drawing Right (SDR). China previously announced it would buy $50 billion in SDR-denominated bonds, Russia and Brazil have committed to $10 billion each.

　　"For the moment, there are no strong voices in China to fuel the debate to question dollar's role," said He Maochun, director of the Research Center of Economy and Diplomacy of Tsinghua University. He said China is not in the position to make demands at the meeting of G8 plus G5 emerging nations, as it is still a guest at the table.

　　The financial crisis has revealed defects in the dollar-led global economy, but He believes a world without the dollar as a leading global currency will be more problematic. In his view, it will be at least 10 years before another currency could displace the US currency.

　　Li Yang, a former central bank adviser and a senior research at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, is more doubtful. "The process of building up the SDR could take 30 to 50 years," he said.

　　"When a country that issues a reserve currency has a long-term trade deficit, then that currency is no longer suitable to be a reserve currency and the process to replace it should start," Li said.

　　Other experts argued that the calls for debate at the summit were meant to send the Obama administration a strong message that the US has to stay committed to strong currency and announce bigger stimulus plans to revive its economy.