數字人民幣為中國提供了一種反擊批評者的新工具 (1 of 2)

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

Digital Yuan Gives China a New Tool to Strike Back at Critics (1 of 2)

Bloomberg News

Bloomberg Tue., April 20, 2021, 10:02 p.m.

(Bloomberg) — Even as China grows in economic and military power, perhaps nothing reveals Beijing’s weaknesses more than the U.S.’s control of the global financial system. China has recently sought ways to counteract U.S. sanctions after the Trump administration targeted Chinese officials and companies over policies from the South China Sea to Xinjiang. Hong Kong’s leader can’t access a bank account and a top executive at Huawei Technologies Co. is detained in Canada. Even China’s state-run banks are complying with U.S. sanctions. That’s one reason the Biden administration is starting to study whether China’s development of a digital currency will make it harder for the U.S. to enforce sanctions, Bloomberg reported earlier this month. The digital yuan, which could see a wider roll out at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, is also spurring the U.S. to consider creating a digital dollar.

But instead of challenging U.S. dollar dominance and neutralizing sanctions, the digital yuan appears potentially more geopolitically significant as leverage over multinational companies and governments that want access to China’s 1.4 billion consumers. Since China has the ability to monitor transactions involving the digital currency, it may be easier to retaliate against anyone who rebuffs Beijing on sensitive issues like Taiwan, Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

“If you think that the United States has a lot of power through our Treasury sanctions authorities, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” Matt Pottinger, former U.S. deputy national security adviser in the Trump administration, said last week at a hearing of the government-backed U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. “That currency can be turned off like a light switch.”

So far China has mostly resisted hitting foreign firms in response to U.S. actions on companies like Huawei, holding off on releasing an “unreliable entity list” designed to punish anyone who damages national security. Any move to cut off access to the digital yuan would carry similarly high stakes, potentially prompting foreign investors to pack up and leave.

But Beijing has gone after companies like Hennes & Mauritz AB for statements on human-rights issues, even while government officials have been careful to avoid directly endorsing a boycott. In a Weibo post last month, the Communist Party Youth League declared: “Want to make money in China while spreading false rumors and boycotting Xinjiang cotton? Wishful thinking!”

Controlling access to China’s massive market remains the best way for Beijing to hit back at the U.S.: As long as Chinese companies still want access to the broader financial world dominated by the U.S. and its allies, Washington can effectively wield sanctions against nearly anyone who doesn’t operate exclusively in China’s orbit. And Beijing has little incentive to shun the dollar.

While President Xi Jinping has called for greater self-sufficiency in key technologies like advanced computer chips, a financial decoupling from the U.S. would only hurt China’s economy and potentially leave the Communist Party more exposed to destabilizing attacks. After Xi effectively ended Hong Kong’s autonomy last year with a sweeping national security law, the U.S. refrained from cutting off the territory’s ability to access U.S. dollars due to the potential devastation to the global financial system.

‘Great Commercial Risk’

Widespread use of the digital yuan — also known as the e-CNY — could potentially give China’s central bank more data on financial transactions than the big tech giants, allowing the Communist Party to both strengthen its grip on power and fine-tune policies to bolster the economy. While that level of control may boost growth in the world’s second-biggest economy, it also risks spooking companies and governments already wary of China’s track record on intellectual property rights, economic coercion and rule of law.

China’s state-endorsed boycott of H&M shows “great commercial risk” for companies that use the digital yuan, Yaya Fanusie, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission hearing. If foreign merchants had to use the e-CNY, he said in a separate email, the government could prohibit transactions with H&M wallets and the store could disappear from digital yuan apps.

“This is the other side of the coin — Beijing not as a sanctions evader, but more empowered to enforce its own financial muscle,” said Fanusie, who has written extensively on how central bank digital assets may impact U.S. financial sanctions. “China’s digital currency is as much about data as it is about money,” he added. Foreign firms that use the digital yuan “might end up handing over to the Chinese government lots of real-time data that it could not access efficiently through conventional banking technology.”

China’s ability to see every transaction may make it difficult for foreign banks to use the digital yuan and still comply with confidentiality rules in their home countries, according to Emily Jin, a research assistant at the Center for a New American Security. But, she added, the currency might appeal to some regimes that prioritize control over privacy protection.

“They might find it easier to convince governments more authoritarian in their leaning that it helps monitor elicit activities or stop them quickly or stop them before they happen,” Jin said. “They aren’t going to market it to everyone.”

The digital yuan would serve as a back-up to Ant Group Co.’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat Pay, which together make up 98% of the mobile-payments market, according to Mu Changchun, director of the central bank’s Digital Currency Research Institute. Last month he said the electronic yuan has the “highest level of privacy protection” and the central bank wouldn’t directly know the identity of users, but the government could get that information from financial institutions in cases of suspected illegal activity.

(to be continued)

Translation

（彭博社）— 即使中國在經濟和軍事實力方面不斷發展，沒有什麼能比美國對全球金融體系的控制更能展示北京的弱點。在特朗普政府針對中國官員和公司從南中國海到新疆的政策之後，中國最近尋到對付美國製裁的方法。香港領導人無法登入使用其銀行帳戶，華為技術有限公司的一位高管被拘留在加拿大。連中國的國有銀行都遵守美國的製裁要求。彭博社本月初報導，這是拜登政府開始研究數字貨幣原因之一, 就是看看中國發展數字貨幣否會使美國更難執行製裁。數字人民幣可能會在2022年北京冬季奧運會上更廣泛地推出，它也刺激美國考慮創建數字美元。

但是，數字人民幣與其挑戰美元的優勢地位和化解製裁措施，它卻成為具有地緣政治意義, 對希望進入中國14億消費者的跨國公司和政府,  似乎有更大潛力產生槓桿作用。由於中國有能力監控涉及數字貨幣的交易，因此對任何在台灣，新疆和香港等敏感問題上拒絕北京的人,會更容易進行報復。

特朗普政府的前美國副國家安全顧問Matt Pottinger上週在一個有政府支持的中美經濟與安全審查委員會的聽證會上說,“如果您認為美國通過美國財政部製裁機構擁有強大的權力，那麼你還沒有看到任何東西”。“貨幣可以像開關電燈一樣被關閉” 。

到目前為止，中國大多數抗拒打擊外國公司，以應對美國對華為等公司的行動，並推遲發布旨在懲罰任何損害國家安全的“不可靠實體名單”。切斷接入數字人民幣的任何舉動都會帶來類似的高風險，有可能促使外國投資者收拾行裝並離開。

但是，即使政府官員一直在小心避免直接擁護抵制行為，北京也一直在追擊像Hennes＆Mauritz AB這樣的公司在人權問題上的聲明。共產黨青年團在上個月的微博帖子中宣稱：“想在中國散佈謠言和抵制新疆棉花的同時賺錢嗎？妄想！”

控制進入中國龐大市場的渠道仍然是北京反擊美國的最佳方法。而只要中國公司仍希望進入由美國及其盟國主導的更廣泛的金融世界，華盛頓就可以幾乎對任何不專門只在中國軌道上運行的人, 採取有效制裁措施。北京幾乎沒有動機去迴避美元。

習近平主席呼籲在先進技術（如先進的計算機芯片）等關鍵技術上實現更大的自給自足，而與美國的金融脫鉤只會損害中國的經濟，並有可能使共產黨更容易遭受会破壞穩定的攻擊。在習近平去年通過全面的國家安全法, 有效地結束了香港的自治權後，美國避免切斷該地區獲得美元的能力, 是由於會對全球金融體系有潛在破壞。

“巨大的商業風險”

數字人民幣（也稱為電子人民幣）的廣泛使用可能為中國央行提供比大型科技巨頭更多的金融交易數據，從而使中國共產黨既可以加強對權力的控制，又可以通過微調政策來加強支持經濟。這種控制水平可能會促進世界第二大經濟體的增長，但也有可能驚嚇已經警惕中國以往曾在知識產權，經濟脅迫和法治方面是有記錄的公司和政府。

華盛頓新美國安全中心副高級研究員Yaya Fanusie在接受美中經濟與安全審查委員會的聽證會後說，中國政府認可的H＆M抵制對使用數字人民幣的公司來說是“巨大的商業風險”。他在另一封電子郵件中說，如果外國商人只能单一使用電子人民幣，則政府可以禁止與H＆M錢包進行交易，使該商店從數字人民幣應用程序中消失。

Fanusie說： “這是同一硬幣的另一面 - 北京不是制裁逃避者，而是更有能力執行自己的金融力量。” Fanusie曾寫了大量關於中央銀行數字資產可能如何影響美國金融制裁的文章。 他補充說：“中國的數字貨幣對數據的重視程度與對貨幣的重視程度一樣。”使用數字人民幣的外國公司“可能最終將大量實時數據交給中國政府, 這些數據是它無法通過傳統銀行技術有效地得到” 。

美國新安全中心研究助理Emily Jin表示，如中國有能力看到每筆交易，這可能會使外國銀行難在以使用數字人民幣之時，同時仍然可遵守本國的保密規定。但是，她補充說，該貨幣可能會吸引某些優先考慮監控多於隱私保護的政權。

Emily Jin說： “他們可能會發現更容易說服各國政府更加專制，因為它有助於監控引誘性活動, 或迅速停止活動, 或在活動發生之前將其阻止。” “他們不會將產品推銷給所有人。”

根據中央銀行的數字貨幣研究所局長穆長春表示，數字人民幣將会作為螞蟻集團公司的支付寶和騰訊控股有限公司的微信支付的後盾，這兩家公司共同構成了移動支付市場的98％。上個月他說，電子人民幣具有“最高級別的隱私保護”，中央銀行不會直接知道用戶的身份，但是在涉嫌非法活動的情況下，政府可以從金融機構那裡獲得該信息。

(to be continued)