Gao Huasheng: RWA — New Opportunities for the Digital Yuan

Lead: RWA could be the digital yuan’s moment

Gao Huasheng argues that the next meaningful role for the digital yuan (数字人民币) is not in beating Alipay or WeChat Pay at everyday retail — it is in serving as the cash leg for real‑world assets (RWA) on chain. Where retail pilots have focused on transport, dining and subsidies, RWA offers a different promise: transform assets, cash flows and rights into verifiable, auditable digital instruments while using the central bank digital currency as the settlement and distribution rail.

A distinct Chinese path, not a copy of the West

Overseas RWA narratives often rely on dollar‑pegged stablecoins buying global assets. China cannot simply copy that model. Under capital controls and strict crypto rules, stablecoins are not an acceptable payment or settlement tool in the Chinese system. Instead, the digital yuan — issued by the People’s Bank of China (中国人民银行) — could provide a regulated, sovereign alternative: assets get on‑chain via blockchain, smart contracts and registries; the digital yuan becomes the programmable cash for subscription, lending, pay‑outs and redemption. Reportedly, the PBOC’s digital currency research institute has already experimented with smart‑contracted prepayment management such as the “Yuan Guanjia (元管家)” product, and Shenzhen (深圳) has piloted similar constrained prepayment flows.

Practical pilots and use cases

The argument is practical, not theoretical. Supply‑chain finance, property rental yields, green energy projects and industrial parks all have stable cash flows and verifiable operational data — exactly the ingredients RWA needs. Imagine rental receipts or solar generation data partially on‑chain, rent collected in digital yuan and automatically split to investors, managers and service providers. That lowers verification costs, tightens audit trails and reduces funding frictions for SMEs. It also sidesteps the legal and regulatory risks of tokenizing securities for public sale: licensed financial institutions would still control issuance, custody and investor access.

Geopolitics, regulation and the global angle

This approach has geopolitical implications. RWA built around the digital yuan could advance RMB asset internationalization — but it also raises questions for cross‑border flows, sanctions exposure and financial stability. It has been reported that pilot statistics from Xinhua show substantial domestic traction for the digital yuan; but China’s RWA path will need clear rules to avoid becoming a new channel for regulatory arbitrage. In short: digital yuan‑backed RWA may offer a home‑grown route to asset digitization and cleaner financing, provided regulators insist on license‑holding intermediaries, disclosure, and strict investor protections.