The Digital Yuan

Days after the European Central Bank publicly disclosed its roadmap for a digital euro project, the People’s Bank of China published a paper describing the advancements of its plan for a digital Yuan. So, strongly incentivised by domestic and external factors, China is leading the race for a digital currency of the national central bank.

Nicola Bilotta, researcher at IAI in the field of international political economy, underlines that the geostrategic dimension behind this kind of currency is highly emphasised in the political narrative of all major powers. With the growing digitalisation of the economy, a national central bank's digital currency is seen as a tool to mitigate risks related to the emergence of new privately-owned ones.