Xi made these comments while speaking in the Politburo Committee plenary on blockchain technology orientation.
Xi emphasized that the deployment of integrated blockchain technologies is crucial in fostering technological innovation and transforming businesses.
He informed the committee:
“We must take blockchain as an important breakthrough for independent innovation of core technologies, clarify the main directions, increase investment, focus on a number of key technologies, and accelerate the development of blockchain and industrial innovation.”
Notably, Xi is advocating blockchain adoption when his government is actively involved in crackdown on cryptocurrencies. Two years back, Beijing issued a blanket ban on cryptos. Initially, the government banned ICOs and later extended to cryptocurrency exchanges.
Media reports indicate that at least one government organization is exploring a ban on cryptocurrency mining. Nevertheless, the Chinese government is on full throttle with its central bank digital currency (CBDC) program.
Even though there were speculations that the Chinese government will unveil CBDC soon, Chinese officials last month stated that there was no specific time table for the launch of CBDC.
In the meantime, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg highlighted the risk of Chinese dominance in the cryptocurrency domain in an attempt to get approval for his plan related to the launch of Libra stablecoin from the US legislators.
In his official statement, Zuckerberg highlighted the need to act quickly to counter China’s moves.
“China is moving quickly to launch a similar idea in the coming months. We can’t sit here and assume that because America is today the leader that it will always get to be the leader if we don’t innovate.”