'We Don't Want To Counter China By Becoming More Like China': Andy Barr Warns Against A CBDC

3 months ago

During a hearing of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) questioned witnesses about Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), and China's use of them to surveil its citizens.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you. Representative Barr.

00:03Chairman, thanks for holding this hearing. Excellent hearing. Important oversight here.

00:08Dr. Cooper, let me ask you a little bit about follow-up on this outbound investment strategy

00:15that we're working on. Currently, Huawei and Hikvision are both listed on Treasury's non-SDN

00:22Chinese military industrial complex list and DOD's 1260H Chinese military company list.

00:29Currently, however, being named on these U.S. lists has little or no effect on these

00:35companies' operations or operations abroad. What would be the effect on these companies

00:41if the U.S. subjected them to full blocking sanctions or implemented a U.S. investment

00:46prohibition? Do you think this would be helpful to include in an outbound bill?

00:53I think it would be effectively impossible for them to operate if they were not able

01:00to access Chinese banks. And so I do think if there were blocking sanctions put on, that

01:06would be essentially a kill shot, potentially, for some of those firms that do business globally.

01:15And again, sanctions is a way to, with precision, to really impede their surveillance authoritarianism,

01:26digital authoritarianism. Is that fair to say?

01:28Yes, it is.

01:30What would be a reason that Treasury would not currently designate those companies which

01:36are so integral to the techno-totalitarian surveillance activities of Beijing?

01:43Well, the bottom line is that the Treasury Department has not used sanctions as a tool

01:47against China for, frankly, most of the last two decades. I was in the White House doing

01:52sanctions work about 20 years ago, and Treasury didn't want to use those tools then. And in

01:58general, I think the Treasury Department has been hesitant to use them now.

02:02Well, we might want to change that. Let me ask any of you to describe the Chinese central

02:10bank digital currency as integrated into its digital authoritarianism. Can anyone speak

02:16to how China seeks to use the digital yuan as a way to surveil its people?

02:28I can say in a very broader sense. Currently, that initiative is not taking a full scale

02:37as the Chinese government wanted to be. However, for those already being experimented in different

02:44cities and the different sectors of societies, it is absolutely true that if you use the

02:51Chinese digital yuan, then the state, the bank, potentially track every financial activity

02:59you do. You have zero privacy under that system.

03:04Well, this is why the United States should not adopt a central bank digital currency,

03:07right? Because we don't want to counter China by becoming more like China. And we are hearing

03:13reports from within China that the plan is to pull all the physical currency out, have

03:18a central bank digital currency, have the central government of China and the CCP monitor

03:24financial activities, and then if they control that, then they can shut down the people's

03:31capabilities of how they spend their money or even take some of their own funds away

03:36from them.

03:38In a way, they are already doing that through the help of Chinese tech companies using those

03:43online payment systems. Those kind of shutdowns, blocking accounts, taking as a form of punishment,

03:50it is already happening in the Chinese financial. But if the central Chinese digital yuan does

03:56that, that will give much more power, which is a terrifying future.

04:02It is a terrifying future. Real quick on the Taiwan guidance, the PRC guidance regarding

04:07Taiwan that includes allowing the death penalty for individuals who are deemed advocates of

04:14Taiwan independence. I'm co-chair of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus. To any of our witnesses, given

04:19that Taiwan recently inaugurated a democratically elected president, how is the PRC using its

04:24surveillance capabilities to surveil or jail pro-Taiwan individuals in China?

04:37This raised another very important question, which is the PRC state extended their ability,

04:47not only surveillance but cyber attack, way beyond PRC borders. Whether you're Taiwan

04:56independence or other activists or political figures or even any other sector, if the Chinese

05:04state targets you, their espionage, particularly the cyber attack, leaves no space as a state

05:14power. Therefore, it's not just the citizen of Taiwan needs to watch what they do, their

05:22activities around the world, but anyone who, if the PRC identified their enemy. So that

05:29caused the United States and any sovereign states to give a strong measure to protect

05:35their own citizens and to counter that kind of beyond PRC border attack.

'We Don't Want To Counter China By Becoming More Like China': Andy Barr Warns Against A CBDC

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