(本文翻譯自 陳冲 情報頭子的備戰諍言 2022-10-14)
Don’t get me wrong. What I’m talking about is financial war, or properly, the war derived from financial competition.
On Taiwan’s Double Tenth National Day, the New York Times published an interview with GCHQ head Jeremy Fleming, talking about the prospect of Russia-Ukraine war. But the focus of the news was actually his call for the western countries to pay attention to Beijing’s tech threat. Financiers naturally concentrate on the DCEP, the digital currency issued by PBoC. As the media widely reported the interview, Fleming’s address at the annual RUSI lecture the next day drew little attention.
Logically, RUSI is UK’s leading think tank and Fleming what the media called “Spy Chief”. The GCHQ he leads has important status as the National Security Council, Fleming’s speech at the RUSI lecture should have attracted great attention. However, people are often misled by 007 movies, perceiving M16 the investigation center instead and therefore his speech this time is somewhat ignored. No matter how, his interview and the speech in the two consecutive days are all right on target, emphasizing the strategic importance of China’s CBDC.
Fleming’s choice of words is just like the euphemisms usually used by British gentlemen. For example, when talking about that western allies have come to view themselves as in direct competition, and sometimes in conflict, with both of the world's other major nuclear superpowers, he clearly regards Russia as the “more manageable.” Not mentioning China but everyone knows what he said is the country. Perhaps it’s the art of speaking of the British. According to Fleming’s words, Beijing is in a leading position in technologies such as surveillance, navigation, and quantum computing, and China’s move to develop CBDC also “enable China to partially evade the sort of international sanctions currently being applied to Putin’s regime in Russia.” This is similar to the previous views by we Appacus Foundation. E-CNY in the form of DCEP, although only the digital version of a sovereign currency and probably with no other conspiracy behind, might make the western countries pay great price when sanctioning China or cutting off China banks from SWIFT as they did to Russia now because RMB has now gradually became a figure in international settlements and has already joined the SDR basket while the CIPS gave China an another way to reduce negative impacts.
Fleming’s concerns do base on some facts. If financial wars breakout or financial sanctions being launched, checking the weapons in hands, Beijing will obviously be more difficult to deal with than Moscow, and the US will inevitably feel uneasy about the financial advantages it possessed for a long time. Recently, the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) rallied and it seems that it’s the NATO in the East. The summit strengthened CBDC project m-Bridge expanded last year ( with four participating authorities now: Thailand, China, the UAE and HK). The effectiveness of financial sanctions will be more variable in the future.
The White House has twice put forward policy statements on digital strategy in March and September this year and required cooperation among departments to develop CBDC, which was against the conservative attitude of the Fed in the past. The strategic implication behind is clearly unquestionable. I have been calling for developing software-based currency since 2006, and we Appacus Foundation also advocate doing research on CBDC since 2017. The central bank might deem the suggestion a fantasy or might think that Taiwan is only a small country with small population that there is no urgent need to study related issues. But if the government now think that being closer to the US is the better choice, we should not just beg for help. Instead, show that we are strategically valuable to be a partner. As we claim ourselves the technology island and the central bank also publishes research results of CBDC from time to time, why not just launch it and show that the so-called Non-NATO ally is not empty words and that we can also play a role in financial war (if any).