US senators warn China's Digital Yuan could compromise Olympic athletes

Three US senators have written to their nation's Olympic Committee with a request that it "forbid American athletes from receiving or using Digital Yuan during the Beijing Olympics" – a reference to the Winter Games scheduled to commence on February 4th, 2022. "While the Chinese Communist Party insists their efforts are aimed …

[Anonymous Coward]

Know your customer

If they make banking as reliable as their cards, you can kiss goodbye to SWIFT, IBAN, BACS, PayPal, Venmo, Moneybookers, WesternUnion, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and al the big pile of patched up shite that passes as a banking system in the west.

Imagine it, simply deciding to send money, and sending the money and the money is sent, even across borders, worldwide, cheap, instantaneous, reliable, unlimited.

All the OECD poison and suspicion that's been injected into the west's banking system gone, replaced by a more businesslike Chinese approach.

[druck]

Re: Know your customer

I bet the CCP really knows their customer once you've agreed to all the permissions the wallet app demands.

[elsergiovolador]

Is 2022 the new 1936?

In 1936, during summer olympics, Germany already had Sachsenhausen camp, China has Xinjiang.

Would you go to Germany if you knew?

[ChrisC]

When it's someone else's government doing the surveilling, absolutely.

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Republicans are focused on their enemy country list. Chinese anything makes the list, Russia and Turkey don't. Rational explanations are often nonexistent.

[Gene Cash]

The Olympics are still a thing?

Hands up if you haven't paid attention to them in at least 16 years.

[Cuddles]

Interesting change of attitude

Until about 10 years ago, it was illegal to take yuan outside China. Even now, there's a very short list of countries for which China allows international transactions to be carried out in yuan, and use as a reserve currency is heavily restricted. But now we're suddenly worried that they're going to start handing out yuan to anyone who will take it for suveillance purposes. And remember that however they like to advertise it, this is just a transfer method for the same currency, not anything actually new.

It's interesting because it sounds like something they would absolutely try doing, but it must create some serious arguments behind closed doors between those who want to spread yuan around as a surveillance tool and those who want to continue restricting it as much as possible.

[MachDiamond]

Ye ol' blockchain

I expect that the digital Chinese currency will have built in tracking. The government will know who has what and where it's been. Physical cash can be nice and anonymous, but digital money is surveillance squared. Everybody will be instantly trackable everywhere they go. If you don't have a phone, you won't be able to have money. Even little kids will need phones or their grandparents can't give them money for ice cream, candy and all of the things the parents would rather they didn't have. Every small trader will be tracked and taxes helpfully deducted by automatic payment.