The digital yuan is basically a bank with a nice API and should be treated similarly.
The real solution is to fix our financial system so that transferring USD is cheap, fast and easily done through an API.
The digital yuan is a form of Chinese soft power projection (as the US dollar is similarly), and it's not entirely unreasonable to dissuade its use (depending on your geopolitical views).
"You invaded someone else therefore you should allow yourself to be invaded."
Akin to saying, "it's bad when you do things that make you powerful, but good when we do them" which is unquestionably true from the perspective of any individual great power.
(One reason I could never be a politician is that I can’t empathise with nationalism like that; I recognise it, but it feels a bit dirty to me).
They can shut a country financial system down at any moment.
I bet they are afraid of being victims of what they know it's possible with such powers.
It is a specific CCP initiative to project power and track both its citizens and foreigners and undermine the power of western democracies and the power of the Euro and Dollar.
We were fools to not resist the offer to give away strategic manufacturing technologies and capabilities to China in exchange for cheap labor and a few quarters of profit. We'd be even greater fools to allow this next camel's nose under the tent (Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me...).
Even if the senators are typically Luddites, this is a very good move and cannot happen soon enough.
The bill is probably needed but this is a bad look for the US whichever way you view it. I could go into long details but in short the situation we have now with increasing trade restrictions, stock delistings and so forth is the culmination of catastrophically failed policy towards the Chinese regime. The US and other developed countries were completely wrong and naive in the way they dealt with China. In fairness, in the 80s and 90s no one could have foreseen the current development and it was a reasonable assumption that with economic growth the country would liberalize. Even under Hu/Wen, I can see how people could convince themselves into believing increasing economic ties would make things better. Although already back in the late 2000s it was clear that the promise to open up the markets was a lie that never happened. Foreign ownership continued to be restricted, companies were forced into joint ventures (aka "thanks for the blueprints, suckers"), the Yuan control actually got tighter...
Western countries plus Japan, Korea and Taiwan made the Communist Party rich and powerful. Without all that foreign investment and technology transfer Mainland China would still be a broken backwater. Corporations in the developed world had gold glittering in their eyes when they looked at China and it's massive population. The Chinese regime found that one fatal flaw in free market capitalist systems: While economically they work, there is no incentive for the corporate leadership to do what's best for the country. Those who spearheaded the outsourcing of jobs and factories profited massively. As did the shareholders initially. It only came at the cost of the future of all the less wealthy people in the respective countries. Plus now they have a nuclear power pouring more and more billions into their military, preparing for war, while running concentration camps and allying with Russia and Iran.
I’m curious to learn what the realpolitik behind this really is.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/26/business/russia-rates-rub...
Temporarily true in certain jurisdictions, but OTOH one may with RUB purchase oil, natural gas, palladium, nickel, copper, steel, aluminum, wheat, fertilizer, etc. So, those who need e.g. catalytic converters, especially if they live on the 70% of the planet where there are no limits on RUB whatsoever, will probably continue to use it.