Getty Images | Diyun Zhu
Three Republican senators have proposed a law banning app stores from carrying apps that accept payments using Chinese digital currencies.The “Protecting Americans from Authoritarian Digital Currency Law” It prohibits US app stores from carrying or supporting “support or enable transactions on e-CNY” apps (also known as RMB or RMB).
The app store is also prohibited from supporting or enabling digital original transactions. The bill describes the app store as “another electronic service that distributes applications from published websites, software applications, or third-party developers to users of computers, mobile devices, or other general-purpose computing devices.” Broadly defined.
The bill was proposed by Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), Mike Brown (R-Indiana), and Marco Rubio (R-Florida). “The Chinese Communist Party uses digital currencies to control and spy on everyone who uses them. It cannot give China that chance. The United States is China’s economy at the most basic level. We need to reject attempts to undermine it, “Cotton said. a press release On thursday.
“Digital sources give us direct control and access to an individual’s economic life. This authoritarian regime allows state-controlled digital currencies for our economy and the individuals of American citizens. We cannot allow it to be used as a means of instilling information. ”
Bans may affect WeChat and Alipay
As a reuter reportThe law was introduced after WeChat, a messaging and payment application owned by Tencent in China with more than 1.2 billion users, announced earlier this year that it would begin supporting currencies. It is owned by JackMa’s Ant Group. Alipay, a very popular payment app, also accepts digital currencies. Both apps are available in the Apple and Google app stores. “
Rubio calls China’s digital money a “major financial and surveillance risk” and “ties itself to the genocide digital currency that hates us and is trying to replace us on the world stage. That doesn’t make sense. “
Meanwhile, according to Reuters, the Chinese embassy in Washington called the bill “another example of the United States that just wants to bully foreign companies by abusing state power for reasons that national security cannot support.”
March, 9 Republican Senators suggestion A set of reports and standards for investigating and managing the risks posed by digital sources.
