With China hosting the 2022 Olympics, certain officials from the USA seemed concerned about American athletes using the Chinese central bank digital currencies [CBDC], the digital yuan during their time in the Asian country.
China took a massive plunge into the development of a national digital currency. China went on to become one of the first countries to develop and issue its very own CBDC. China’s fast-paced development of the digital yuan certainly caught the eyes of the world. Several countries did not want China to garner an upper hand in the financial sphere, which led them to instigate their very own research and development in the field.
With the digital yuan came an array of rumours surrounding the asset. Numerous officials noted that the Chinese government would be able to track and trace the finances of those using the asset. Keeping this in mind, three senators of the USA went on to write a letter to the Olympic officials urging them to keep the athletes representing the country from using the digital yuan.
USA athletes won’t be using the digital yuan?
The letter signed by Republican senators Marsha Blackburn, Roger Wicker and Cynthia Lummis noted that American athletes should be refrained from accepting or even using the Chinese CBDC.
The senators went on to express fear over how the Chinese Communist Party, along with the country’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China [PBoC], could use the digital yuan to keep an eye on athletes during their stay in the country and even after they revert to the USA.
Elaborating on the same, the senators wrote,
“The integration of China’s digital currency into global commerce has many problematic privacy implications. These concerns are especially pronounced given the Chinese Communist Party’s use of new and emerging technologies to suppress the Uyghur minority, the people of Hong Kong, and those across China who strive for freedom of expression. These concerns are not hypothetical. Rather, digital payment platforms such as WeChat, are already being used to surveil, threaten, and arrest Chinese citizens.”