Beijing Winter Olympics: What Am I Watching?

Today’s post will be shorter than our usual weekly offering. This is partially due to the amount of cooking I signed myself up to do for the Lunar New Year. (It’s the Year of the Tiger. I’m a Tiger. It’s a special year.) But I am also keeping this post short to not “get ahead of our skis”, because the upcoming Beijing Olympics will catalyze many big events that we will be watching (winter sports pun totally intended).

I’m a hockey fan, so sports-wise I will no doubt be watching some hockey games, even though NHL players will not be participating this time. There are also two non-sports-related developments I will be paying close attention to: e-CNY’s non-Chinese user adoption and the Xi-Putin meeting.

e-CNY Foreigner Adoption

When I shared my perspective on the top tech trends of 2022 with Protocol China, I singled out the adoption of e-CNY, China’s Central Bank Digital Currency, as entering a pivotal year. By all measures, e-CNY adoption is already off to a fast start, doubling its user base to more than 260 million in the last two months. Its pilot app launched on both iOS and Android systems. JD, Tencent’s WeBank, AliPay’s MyBank, and most recently Meituan have all come onboard with integrations. Domestic growth is a foregone conclusion.

What will be more interesting to watch is if the e-CNY gets any uptake during the Winter Olympics by non-Chinese users, like athletes and staff from visiting countries’ teams. Foreign visitors can technically install and use the e-CNY. There are four tiers of the e-CNY wallet and one of the tiers only needs a phone number to register – neither a Chinese bank account nor a valid ID is required.

In Part III of our e-CNY deep-dive series, we explored the e-CNY’s global ambition as one of its long-term strategic values. As I wrote in that post, the Beijing Winter Olympics is the end of the beginning of e-CNY’s own Long March beyond its border.

Will foreign visitors use the e-CNY wallet, both as a new product and a geopolitical reality? We will find out soon enough.

Xi-Putin Meeting IRL

When the Winter Olympics open on February 4th, a rare, in-person bilateral meeting between Chinese President Xi and Russian President Putin will be more closely watched than the opening ceremony. The geopolitical backdrop is, of course, Ukraine, as well as the diplomatic boycott of the Olympics by the US and other western countries.

Contrary to some media commentary mistakenly deeming this China-Russia alliance as “unlikely” a decade ago, a multipolar world is something both countries’ leaders have wanted for decades. When then Chinese president Jiang Zemin and his Russian counterpart Boris Yeltsin met in 1997, the two leaders promised each other to build a “multipolar world” not dominated by the US, an episode well-chronicled in the book “We Shall Be Masters” by Chris Miller of Tufts.

Jiang and Yeltsin just didn’t have the power and money to pull it off. In 1997, Russia’s total GDP was $404 billion, and per capita GDP was $2700, while China’s total GDP was $960 billion and per capita GDP was a meager $780! Things have certainly changed since then, especially for China, whose total GDP is now around $18 trillion, while Russia’s hovers around $1.7 trillion.

2022 is very different from 1997, but the two countries' multipolar worldview has stayed consistent. With Xi proclaiming Putin as his “best friend”, this meeting may set off a series of world events towards that multipolarity.

We won’t know until it happens. Until then, I hope everyone has a good Lunar New Year. The Year of the Tiger will no doubt be an interesting one to live through.

北京冬奥会: 我会关注什么?

今天的文章比我们平时每周的文章会短一些,部分原因是我给自己加了很多做年夜饭的“工作量”(虎年是我的本命年)。还有一个原因就是,即将开始的北京冬奥会将催生许多大事的走向,所以我们处在关注状态。

我是一个冰球粉丝,所以从体育项目角度来说,我一定会看些冰球赛,尽管这次NHL球员不会参加。还有两项与体育无关的大事,我也会紧密关注:e-CNY的外国人采用程度和习普会。

e-CNY被外国人采用的程度

我与 Protocol China 分享我对2022年科技趋势的看法时,特别指出了数字人民币e-CNY的采用将步入关键的一年。从各方面来看,e-CNY的采用度已经开始飞速增长,在过去两个月里,用户群翻了一番,超过了2.6亿。其试点app已在iOS和安卓系统上推出。京东、腾讯的微众银行、支付宝的网商银行,以及最近的美团都与其对接整合。国内用户增长已是定局。

更值得关注的是,在冬奥会期间,e-CNY是否会被国外用户接纳,如其他国家的运动员和工作人员。外国人理论上说是可以安装使用e-CNY的:e-CNY钱包有四个级别,其中一个级别只需要电话号码就可以注册,既不需要在中国的银行账户,也不需要有效身份证。

在《互联》的e-CNY深度分析系列的第三篇中,我们探讨到了e-CNY的国际化野心,这是其长期战略价值之一。正如我在那篇文章中写到的,北京冬奥会是e-CNY出海“长征”的开始。

外国人是否会使用e-CNY,无论是作为一个新产品还是地缘政治大方向的现实?答案很快就会揭晓。

习普会

2月4日冬奥会开幕时,中国国家主席习近平和俄罗斯总统普京之间罕见的面对面双边会晤将比开幕式更受关注。地缘政治的大背景当然是乌克兰,以及美国和其他西方国家对此冬奥会的外交抵制。

一些媒体评论错误的指出,十年前这种中俄联盟都是 "不可想象的",一个“多极世界”是两国领导人几十年来一直想要的。1997年,当时的中国国家主席江泽民和俄罗斯总统叶利钦会面时,两位领导人相互承诺要建立一个不受美国主导的 "多极世界",塔夫茨大学的Chris Miller 在《We Shall Be Masters》一书中记录了这一会面。

江泽民和叶利钦只是没有足够的国力和资本实现它。1997年,俄罗斯的GDP总量为4040亿美元,人均GDP为2700美元;而中国的GDP总量为9600亿美元,人均GDP只有区区780美元。当然从那以后,世界发生了很大变化,尤其是中国,其GDP总量现在约为18万亿美元,而俄罗斯则徘徊在1.7万亿美元左右。

2022年与1997年截然不同,但两国的“多极世界观”没有动摇过。习近平曾宣称普京是他 "最好的朋友"。这次会晤可能会引发一系列世界大事,走向多极化。

当然在所有事情发生前,都无法百分之百确定。在这关注期间,祝大家过个好年。虎年无疑将是一个不寻常的年份。

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