Republicans Want to Keep the Digital Yuan Out of American Apps
Republican senators from Arkansas, Florida, and Indiana have introduced a bill that would prevent Apple and Google from distributing apps that accept China's digital yuan as payment.
The Defending Americans from Authoritarian Digital Currencies Act(Opens in a new window) (DAADCA) is straightforward enough: It prohibits software distributors from accepting payment via the digital yuan, also called e-CNY, or from letting third-party apps that support payment via the currency on their platforms.
"The Chinese Communist Party will use its digital currency to control and spy on anyone who uses it," Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) said(Opens in a new window) in a statement. "We can’t give China that chance—the United States should reject China’s attempt to undermine our economy at its most basic level."
Cotton is joined by senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Mike Braun (R-IN) in presenting this bill.
Reuters notes(Opens in a new window) that a think-tank called The Center for a New American Security warned in January that e-CNY was "likely to be a boon for CCP surveillance in the economy and for government interference in the lives of Chinese citizens" as it became increasingly popular(Opens in a new window).
DAADCA specifically prevents Apple, Google, and other software distributors from supporting apps that accept payments via e-CNY within the US; the bill doesn't prohibit the companies from having anything to do with the digital yuan outside their home country.
It's unclear, however, why the Republican senators felt the need to introduce this bill even though American companies aren't exactly rushing to adopt e-CNY in their apps in the first place.
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