Quick thread on #digitalyuan privacy issues: privacy protections from merchants, tech, etc. look quite good (from gov is diff story). In US, you give all credit card credentials to anyone you pay, trusting they won't keep charging you or lose/sell credentials 1/n
2/n These in US are "pull payments," you auth someone to pull money from your acct. Privacy & security in US w/these *has* gotten better with Apply pay and chip cards that encrypt info to protect your identity and card info. eCNY is different, allowing you to "push" payments
3/n push payments like in eCNY can be less convenient, but they can give consumers more control over how much and when charged, and system can ensure your identity and sensitive data are NOT shared with merchants, better protecting privacy
4/n What about government? Financial privacy from gov is weak globally b/c of anti-money laundering, but gov controlling centralized ledger is privacy nightmare. eCNY can get some privacy by registering wallet only w/phone num, and PBOC doesn't know name associated w/number.
5/n Of course, any AML investigation or crime could easily force the telcos to hand over the identity data to authorities, but that's true today for any online payment method in China, or abroad. Naturally legal protections in China are less, shall we say, robust though...
6/6 to conclude, #digitalyuan reflects its context in China, with more privacy from and controls on private sector (this is real and in some sense good!) but less from government. It's a mixed bag but absolutely worth studying technically how the protections in there work or not
If you want a deep dive into these and other issues with #digitalyuan #ecny, especially whether it can take on the dollar (probs not) you can read my testimony to US-China Econ and Security Review Commission here: piie.com/sites/default/…

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More from @ChorzempaMartin

15 Jan
Thread on Invisible China: Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell's illuminating and scary deep dive into rural China's ills and stark inequality. No matter how bad you think it is, it's worse there---more like a developing country than a global superpower. 1/n
2/Rozelle rolled up his sleeves to understand the CN most only see from plane or train windows. Issues in health and education, bringing down human capital of 300m rural Chinese, could trap it in middle income status.

Think future like Mexico/Turkey now, not Korea/Taiwan
3/Most focus on impressive elite universities and high schools topping int'l rankings, but CN average education levels are abysmal.

Only 30% of China's working age pop completed high school--last place for all middle income countries, worse than many poor countries!
Read 10 tweets
4 Jan
One thing I've been thinking about recently is that for Chinese firms, an IPO can be dangerous. Why? Attracting the wrong sort of attention. A quick thread with two examples (Ant is obviously one) 1/n
Ex 1: Qudian, a high interest small loan company that raised nearly $1b USD list October 2017, company then was only 3 years old. It had 7m borrowers and $5.6b in loans at the time of IPO. The secret to its success? Partnership with Alipay, whose user base turbocharged growth 2/n
Chinese authorities were aware so-called "cash loans" (like payday loans in the US) were a fast-growing business w/lot of risk and rampant abusive practices, but it was not until the IPO disclosures that they realized just how big it already was. So they slammed on the brakes 3/n
Read 10 tweets
18 Dec 20
A quick thread on today's big new additions to the @CommerceGov entity list, why they may backfire, and why will be hard to roll back: 1/n
The main firms that can now no longer buy US tech or goods are SMIC (China's main semiconductor manufacturer)--but only for the most advanced semi tech, DJI (world-leading drone company), a big state construction and shipbuilding company, some in biotech, and universities 2/n
Commerce argues that all are acting against US broadly defined nat sec/foreign policy interests, from Civ/Mil fusion and Xinjiang to South China Sea. You can see the whole list and rationales here public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2020-28031.pdf 3/n
Read 6 tweets
15 Oct 20
Thread: Adding Ant to the entity list is a terrible idea.

If the bar to harsh US actions against a CN company is simply global success and innovation, USG plays into and strengthens the CN hardliner view that it US just wants to take CN down
scmp.com/news/world/uni…
Note the lack of real national security justification to give this action ant real legitimacy. No sanctions violations like ZTE/Huawei, and Ant isn’t actively going after US users, so “sensitive data” on Americans is bogus. Alipay is accepted in US but mainly for CN tourists.
any impact on Ant would prob be symbolic. I’m not aware of any major
reliance on US tech/products (except dev tools for Android and iOS, which may or may not fall under entity list—any experts on this know?) IPO still goes on, it expands internationally, and US controls look weak
Read 4 tweets
25 Aug 20
#Ant Prospectus Thread: Ant dwarfs any other #fintech company, but in past (frustratingly for researchers like me) disclosed few, sporadic details abt user #'s, assets, pymnt vol, bad loans, etc.. Prospectus is a treasure trove 1/n
2/n
Payments: 711 million active Alipay users, 1/2 of China's entire population. 80m merchants accept.
118 trillion RMB (17t USD) in payments last 12 mo, 622 billion x-border

Credit: 500m authorized borrowers, 2 tn RMB in consumer and small business loans outstanding
3/n Investments: Half a billion users with over 4.1 trillion RMB (600b USD) invested on its platform. Expanded far beyond Yu'E Bao with most of China's major asset managers vying for $$ from Ant's 500m users.
Read 10 tweets
26 Nov 19
Cannot overstate how big a deal this is: proposed rules for ICT supply chain exec order dropped today from @CommerceGov would give gov't unprecedented , sweeping authority over the tech sector. This goes miles beyond Huawei 1/n (h/t @pstAsiatech)
commerce.gov/news/press-rel…
@CommerceGov @pstAsiatech It would create a new #CFIUS like body at commerce for case-by-case review if one wants to import or install ICT tech/equipment/software developed in "foreign adversaries" (e.g. China, Russia). If commerce/intel community thinks it is risky, can force changes, and reject 2/n
@CommerceGov @pstAsiatech This could be the ultimate decoupling tool, giving gov authority to shut off Chinese electronics' use in US. Commerce ICT definition is "information or
data processing, storage, retrieval, or communication." Read: phones, any #IOT device, smart TV, hard drive, routers... 3/n
Read 4 tweets

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