Xi Jinping, President of China, has stressed that his country should concentrate on becoming the global center of science and innovation while noting that blockchain is “accelerating breakthrough applications”, reports CNBC.
During a speech, which he gave this week, he said,”a new generation of technology represented by artificial intelligence, quantum information, mobile communications, internet of things and blockchain is accelerating breakthrough applications.”
These statements come off as promising since China’s stance both on blockchain and cryptocurrency is like a pendulum swinging back and forth, from positive to negative. Thus, in April, the government backed a new $1.6 billion Xiong’An Global Blockchain Innovation Fund in Hangzhou.
Before that, in March, the People’s Bank of China’s (PBC) chairman, Zhou Xiaochuan, recognized that the development of digital currency is “inevitable” while promising that the bank will continue to pay attention to blockchain technology and so far “the PBC’s digital currency research team has de in-depth studies on digital currency-related technologies such as mobile payment, trusted and controllable cloud computation, cryptographic algorithm, and secure chip.”
Yet solely a month prior to that Beijing officially banned sales of new digital tokens and halted Bitcoin trading. It was argued that because of this the market lost $340 billion of value since the start of January.
The fresh statements from Jinping should be perceived as critical by blockchain and crypto players, as this spells good news for the industry especially since he is a pivotal figure in the Chinese ruling system. And most probably a close-to-eternal one as well, as recently the Chinese legislative body, National People’s Congress, unanimously approved the reappointment of Xi Jinping as president with no limit on the number of terms he can serve.
Other top officials, such as the President of neighboring Russia, Vladimir Putin has also expressed his enthusiasm when it comes to blockchain, saying “we need it.”
This week China also held a blockchain conference, Boao Blockchain Forum for Asia in Hainan Province. The Chinese President held a meeting with the Chairman of the Boao Forum for Asia, Ban Ki-moon, just before its start. During it, Ban Ki-moon thanked the Chinese government for supporting the BFA.
The conference itself has drawn significant attention but also caused a furor when one of its speakers tried to impersonate Mao Zedong — one of the most controversial political figures of the 20th century and a long-standing dictator of China.
