Senators Plan to Ban Use of Digital Yuan in US-Based Mobile Apps

Three Republican senators are pushing to prevent platforms from hosting apps that enable transactions in China’s digital yuan, citing concerns that the technology could be used to spy on US residents. On Thursday, senators Tom Cotton, Mike Braun, and Marco Rubio proposed the ‘Defending Americans from Authoritarian Digital Currencies Act’ to limit China’s influence in the United States. The bill from the senators aims to prevent US-based businesses like Google and Apple from hosting apps that would otherwise promote or enable China’s digital yuan, commonly known as the e-CNY, on their app stores. Cotton said, “The Chinese Communist Party will use its digital currency to control and spy on anyone who uses it. We can’t give China that chance—the United States should reject China’s attempt to undermine our economy at its most basic level.” Because it is state-controlled and issued by a central bank, the e-CNY, which is designed to replace actual coins and notes, differs from cryptos like bitcoin and ether in that it is state-controlled and issued by a central bank. China has been promoting the adoption of its digital money in China. As government pressure over the use of the digital yuan grew, China’s largest messaging app, Tencent-owned WeChat, began to support it in early January. Earlier this year, the digital yuan made a debut at the Beijing Olympic Winter Games, where it was used in an international trial involving foreigners...