In a scary world, comfort food can be a source of solace. Tasty Congee & Noodle Wantun Shop, a restaurant in Hong Kong, offers soothing rice porridge topped with scallions to locals, visitors from mainland China and any foreigners who have acquired the taste. The bill can be paid in Hong Kong dollars or the mainland’s currency, the yuan. The congee shop will even take the e-CNY, a digital currency issued by China’s central bank (although the maître d’ had never seen anyone use it before). Over 5,000 merchants in the city accept this novel form of money.
China’s leaders seem newly optimistic about the yuan’s prospects beyond the mainland. They have long been keen to ease their dependence on the American dollar for international transactions. Yet progress has been uneven. In recent years they have built their own conventional and digital payment rails, bypassing the main dollar-centric financial infrastructure. And thanks to a shortage of borrowers at home, China can offer soothing interest rates to those abroad. Xi Jinping, China’s leader, has said the country must have a “powerful” currency. The yuan is still far from that. But it is becoming something else: a source of comfort for countries and firms disconcerted by America’s haphazard stewardship of the truly powerful dollar.