China is expanding the testing of a central-bank sanctioned digital currency that could potentially become a universal monetary instrument.
By Henry Chang
Last week, China’s Commerce Ministry published emerging specifics of a pilot program for the nation’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) to be outspread to multiple domestic markets. Currently, the digital medium of exchange is being tested in four cities: Xiong’an New Area, Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Chengdu. Plans to expand to the major Chinese metro areas of Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao Greater Bay Area, Beijing and the Yangtze River Delta region have been announced. China’s central bank, The People’s Bank of China (PBoC), is overseeing the expansion of the program on a ‘city by city basis.’
China’s CBDC is also utilized as a ‘digital currency electronic payment’ (DCEP) and could soon be the Asian powerhouse’s first digital currency.
State owned and operated China Global Television Network (CGTN) said initial users would be able to “withdraw money, make payments, and transfer money after registering with their mobile phone number. The banks are also testing a scenario where users can transfer money without the internet.”
Last week, the PBoC released info stating it is “actively and steadily promoting the research and development of the state digital currency” through the end of 2020.
Western leaders are correct to be concerned about China’s new digital currency as they have been woefully flatfooted on the matter. Widespread adoption of the digital yuan would naturally have catastrophic consequences on an already fluttering dollar value. China will be the first country in the world to hold a digital central bank currency. This strategy could be the ultimate checkmate in China’s game of economic expansion.
Other analysts see teh emergence of the digital yuan through the pernicious lens of a one world currency. Steven Guinness, an independent UK economic and geopolitical analyst, gives a warning on the subject:
“The ideological agenda of central banks to digitise the entirety of the world’s financial system and to maintain their power base is being spearheaded by the Bank for International Settlements through their Innovation Hub. Unless people begin to recognise where the manipulation and growth in the CBDC narrative is coming from, and how there is a targeted agenda to guide the world into a cashless society, global planners will in the years to come get their way,” Guinness said.
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