The repercussions of this turnaround will be felt at the international level, many central banks, about 80% of the planet, are studying how to introduce a virtual currency, but the projects involve a sample of just 10%.
The five-year plan of the digital economy
The State Council, for its part, has just launched the five-year plan of the digital economy, equal to 10% of GDP by 2025, in which the e-CNY, which can also be used by those without a current account, will play a role crucial. The central bank has acquired full control of the flows, the payment QR codes of Tencent (WeChat) and Alipay (Alibaba) have just been unified and, above all, it has barred the door to cryptocurrencies, precisely to give the green light to the new one.
What better stage to launch the e-CNY?
While consolidating the existing one – this is the case of the renewal to 2026 of the $ 50 billion swap with the Bank of England, at the beginning of 2021 London recorded + 38.8% of exchanges in yuan – Beijing looks to the Rcep countries but also to Vladimir Putin to attract Russia into the orbit of the Cips, the international payments circuit, a great rival of Swift (which is eight times larger in terms of trade volume).
Challenge to US dominance
If Xi Jinping does not give up on the cooperation of the “Silk Road e-commerce”, should we expect new geopolitical problems from the e-CNY sprinter? “The e-CNY operation has great significance from a political point of view, being able to worry the US dollar and, consequently, the American economy – observes Giovanni Trova, professor of economic statistics at the Department of Economics and Finance of the University of Rome Tor Vergata. After all, the idea of an electronic money controlled by the state can undoubtedly be a feature that should not be underestimated in the perspective of a global economic policy. This view, moreover, is shared by American economists, including Kenneth Rogoff, who observed that the United States – at least from the point of view of a central electronic currency – must recover a competitive disadvantage over China for at least ten years “.