China floats the idea of ​​an "Asian yuan" to reduce its dependence on the US dollar

The proposed "Asian Yuan" token, backed by distributed ledger technology, would supposedly help reduce Asia's reliance on vis-à-vis the US dollar for international trade.

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Researchers at a Chinese state-run think tank have floated the idea of ​​an Asia-wide digital currency in a bid to reduce its dependence on an economy based on the US dollar.

The views of researchers Liu Dongmin, Song Shuang and Zhou Xuezhi from a unit of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) have been published in an issue of the journal World Affairs released at the end of September. , who said the creation of an Asian yuan token would reduce Asia's dependence on the USD.

Like existing and tested Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), the researchers said Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) would be the backing for the Asian token, which would be pegged to a set of 13 currencies.

The currencies would include those of the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as the Chinese yuan, Japanese yen and South Korean won, according to the researchers.< /p>

“More than 20 years of deep economic integration in East Asia has laid a good foundation for regional monetary cooperation. The conditions for the establishment of the Asian yuan have gradually formed,” the researchers wrote in the newspaper consulted by the South China Morning Post.

The journal is affiliated with China's Department of Foreign Affairs, with researchers drawn from the Institute of World Economics and Politics, one of several research units of CASS, a think tank with various ties with the country's ruling party.

The US dollar and, more recently, cryptocurrencies have become a popular method for Southeast Asians to conduct business, send remittances, and hedge against inflation in their respective local currencies .