US bill proposes to prevent apps from accepting digital yuan

Republican senators want to block US app stores, including Apple and Google, from hosting apps that allow payments to be made with China’s digital currency, amid fears that the payment system could allow Beijing to spy on Americans.

The bill released on Thursday states that companies that own or control app stores “must not transact in or support any apps in [suas] app stores in the US that subscribe to or allow transactions on e-CNY”.

The Center for a New American Security said in a January 2021 report that China’s digital currency and electronic payments system “would likely be of benefit to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surveillance of the economy and government interference.” in the lives of Chinese citizens”, noting that “transactions will retain accurate data about users and their financial activities”.

The move comes after WeChat, Tencent’s messaging and payments app with more than 1.2 billion users, announced that it would start supporting the currency earlier this year. Alipay, the popular payments app owned by Jack Ma’s Ant Group, also accepts digital currency. Both apps are available on the Apple and Google app stores.

Apple, Google, Ant and Tencent did not respond to requests for comment.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington called the project “another example of the United States rampantly intimidating foreign companies by abusing state power on the basis of unsustainable national security.”

While deterring potential national security threats linked to China is a rare point of bipartisan agreement in the deeply divided US Congress, the bill’s prospects are uncertain.