China wants to become a leader in blockchain development

China is ready to become a leading country in the development of blockchain technology. This ambition was officially revealed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, on the occasion of the 18th Collective Study of the Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party. This is one of the workshops that the Chinese Communist Party holds regularly. Thursday’s meeting was dedicated to technological innovations. For Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is also the party leader, it was an opportunity to express the country’s position with regard to blockchain technology.

“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”.

According to Xi Jinping, China is already well ahead when it comes to blockchain development, nevertheless, the time has come to accelerate this development in order to “take the leading position in the emerging field of blockchain”.

These words follow the already circulating news about the development of a proprietary digital currency by the PBoC (People’s Bank of China). The launch of this centralised cryptocurrency has not yet been determined, and few details are known about it, like whether it will be based on a blockchain.

China, blockchain development and contradictions

In reality, the use of blockchain technology to develop a highly centralised currency seems to be a contradiction in China, since it undermines the concept of decentralisation that cryptocurrencies must possess. Moreover, it is no coincidence that this sector has been the victim of repeated bans by the Chinese government.

But it is not surprising. China’s political system is strongly centralised with concentrated control in the hands of the ruling party, which often suppresses “adverse” attempts with censorship. An illustrious victim of this system is the YouTuber PewDiePie. 

In a recent video, PewDiePie spoke about the protests in Hong Kong and joked about Chinese President Xi Jinping, comparing him to Winnie The Pooh. The Swedish YouTuber was actually simply commenting on one of the many memes that circulate online, but it was enough for the Chinese authorities to ban him too.

In a following video, PewDiePie commented on the ban smiling and showing the blank page that appears trying to search for his name on the internal search engines of YouTube and Reddit. 

“This sucks but I knew it would happen” commented PewDiePie, explaining that there were already precedents that suggested that he too would be hit by the ban.

This is just one example of an oppressive behaviour, that of China, which clashes with the desire to spread as much as possible a decentralised technology such as the blockchain.