The White House is collecting information on China’s plans to use the digital yuan. Some US officials fear that the PRC may use this currency to reduce the value of the dollar in the world. Bloomberg reported this on Sunday, April 11, citing sources.
As the interlocutors of the agency noted, the employees of the US Treasury Department, the State Department, the Pentagon and the National Security Council at the White House have stepped up efforts to “understand what the consequences could be” from the use of this currency.
Some of them express fears that the use of the digital yuan will become “one of the elements in a long-term effort to deprive the dollar of its role as the main reserve currency in the world.”
In addition, officials are worried about how the digital yuan will spread and whether it can be used to circumvent US sanctions. As noted in the publication, Washington considers it especially important what consequences for the global financial system may manifest in the long term.
The sources clarified that at the moment the Biden administration is not planning “any measures to counter the threats from China’s digital currency”, but, on the contrary, are interested in the possibility of creating a “digital dollar”.
In late February, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell announced that research on the potential use of the digital dollar is currently being conducted by the Boston Federal Reserve Bank and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
On February 28, the head of the Atlantic Council, a NATO think tank, Frederic Kempe, said the development and implementation of the digital dollar would help the United States to contain China and its financial system.