【英文】美国智库报告：中国数字人民币！美元主导金融体系的替代方案（40页）

Central bank digital currencies (CBDC) are digital tokens issued by central banks. In a way, they are  the digital version of cash; their value is guaranteed by a central bank. Unlike money held in credit  cards and mobile wallets, CBDCs are not a mere representation of physical money stored elsewhere.  Instead, they are a complete replacement for currency notes. While several countries are developing  their digital currencies, China is well positioned to take the lead with the digital yuan. Tis paper  highlights ways in which China can use its digital yuan to internationalize the renminbi (RMB) and  gradually chip away at the hegemony of the dollar. Te frst part of the paper focuses on the dollar’s dominance in the global fnancial system and the  privileges the United States accrues as a result of the dollar being the world reserve currency. Te  United States has a tight grip on the world’s payment rails, especially in the case of cross-border  transactions. For example, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications  (SWIFT)—the largest cross-border payment clearinghouse in the world—has to comply with and  implement unilateral U.S. sanctions. 

These sanctions seriously hinder trade and damage the economies of the countries afected by them, as was the case with Iran, which lost $150 billion worth of  revenue as a result of U.S. sanctions.1  Once a country is cut of from SWIFT’s network, it becomes  extremely difcult for it to trade with the rest of the world. Tus, via the dollar’s dominance and  its geopolitical muscle, the United States is positioned to maintain a tight grip on the world’s  fnancial system. In an increasingly multipolar world, this outdated, decades-old system of the dollar as the apex  currency and the United States’ position of power that allows it to pursue its own geopolitical interests has become outdated. Te U.S. dollar’s hegemony has been challenged by economies like those  of the European Union (EU), Russia, and China. Of all the countries, China fnds itself in a dominant position to gain from this transition. In order to challenge the dollar’s hegemony and internationalize its currency, China will have to move away not just from the dollar but also from the  payment rails dominated by the dollar. Te best way to simultaneously do both would be to introduce a new payment rail like CBDCs.