The US dollar became a reserve currency when the US gave away 4% of its GDP every year for a few years to Europe to pay for oil imports and imports they needed to rebuild their economies.
Unless Xi is talking about large scale loans that are forgiven, this seems scarcely plausible.
250+ years of Freedom of Speech and lots of avenues for people to seek justice has bad its impact on global commerce. Until the Beijing regime has a well established track record of following suit they just aren’t going to see people making big long teem beta on their economy, assets, and currency. The risks of manipulation screwing over investors is just too high.
“And how does he propose to do that without running massive trade deficits for renminbi to be held by foreigners?”
What Xi might be intending is that loans be denominated in Yuan.