As China is issuing the world's first major digital currency, the Financial Times reported that in order to promote the e-currency, China is pressing American companies such as McDonald’s, Visa, Nike and others to install a digital renminbi payments system before Beijing Winter Olympics in February 2022 to allow consumers paying with the currency.

The digital renminbi, also known as e-CNY, is legal tender issued by China’s central bank that allows people to make digital transactions through mobile phone app. The People’s Bank of China says that e-renminbi will coexist with cash. Currently, central banks of dozens other countries worldwide are also considering to adopt digital currencies.

According to the report, in order to comply with the policy, McDonald's is conducting a pilot program in 270 stores in Shanghai to allow the use of digital renminbi wallets, but the Chinese government requires McDonald's to expand this system to all stores in China. McDonald’s declined to say whether it was under pressure, but emphasized that “Shanghai is our pilot city and we will learn from customers’ response”.

A person familiar with the situation said that Visa, a top Olympics sponsor, and Nike, a U.S. team sponsor, were also facing pressure from the Chinese government. Visa and Nike both declined to comment in this matter.

Darrell Duffie, co-head of a project on the e-renminbi run by Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, said China’s rollout of the e-currency is slower than that what has been planned, due to the pandemic. He pointed out that U.S. companies are not the only targets, as China is also pressuring the vast majority of large retailers.

Some U.S. critics said that Washington should pay more attention to the security concerns of e-CNY, because this will give the Beijing authorities access to financial transaction data and strengthen their monitoring capabilities.

Michael McCaul, the top Republican lawmaker on the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee, said that although China’s digital renminbi is new technology, it is using “the same old playbook” where the Chinese Communist party uses commercial integration to decouple itself from the international system.

Eric Sayers, of the American Enterprise Institute, said If the digital renminbi becomes popular, Beijing will have a “powerful new tool” to pressure on global companies. “The administration, Congress and think-tank community should be exploring this topic and its wide range of implications today, not in several years when it manifests into a bigger problem,” he said.

Yaya Fanusie, a former CIA analyst, believes the digital renminbi could give China space to damage foreign companies. He said that China has punished H&M and Nike over their criticism over forced labor, and that the Chinese government could block consumers from using the digital renminbi at the stores of foreign companies that do not comply with Beijing’s requirements.

These comments are exaggerated of course, though the focus is China's attitude towards the promotion of digital renminbi and its policy operations. Such a direct policy intervention for companies is unusual. If direct policy intervention has become a policy habit, the corporate level could be intervened in regard to any issues or policies. This is a clear signal for companies from all over the world who wish to enter the Chinese market.