Li Yang, Chairman of the National Financial and Development Laboratory: Facing the wave of stablecoins, China needs to advance on two tracks

PANews reported on June 21 that Li Yang, member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and chairman of the National Finance and Development Laboratory, delivered a keynote speech entitled "Several Important Issues in China's Current Macroeconomics" at the CICC Securities 2025 Mid-term Capital Market Investment Summit on June 17. Li Yang said that the United States promotes stablecoin legislation, and its legislative purpose clearly serves the interests of the US dollar: promoting the modernization of US dollar payments, consolidating and strengthening the international status of the US dollar, and creating trillions of new demand for US Treasury bonds. The stablecoin mechanism cleverly transforms the expansion of the crypto market into an extension of the US dollar's influence on the chain. Faced with the wave of stablecoins, China needs to make full progress on two fronts. On the one hand, since any form of stablecoin cannot avoid the issue of monetary sovereignty, firmly promoting the internationalization of the RMB is still the core task of cultivating a strong currency (RMB). On the other hand, it must be seen that the integration and development trend of stablecoins, cryptocurrencies and traditional financial systems will be difficult to reverse. Stablecoins and cryptocurrencies will achieve complementary development with central bank digital currencies, comprehensively improve payment efficiency and reduce payment costs, reconstruct the global payment system, and drive the development of DeFi. Regarding the further development path, we should make full use of Hong Kong’s favorable conditions, relying on its status as a financial center and its existing institutional foundation (such as USDT’s headquarters in Hong Kong), develop offshore RMB stablecoins, and build controllable international payment channels.