Professor Jun Qian Attends Opening Ceremony of Shanghai Forum 2021, Analyzing Global Digital Monetary Framework and Development Trends

Release time：2021-10-31    

On October 29^th 2021, the annual meeting of “Shanghai Forum 2021” commenced at Fudan University, focusing on “Recovery and Resilience: Asia’s Role in a Sustainable Future”. Through both online and offline channels, a total of over 2200 guests and representatives from thinktanks, universities, academic institutions, enterprises, governments and media in more than 40 countries around the world attended the forum to discuss the development of Asia in the future. Professor Jun Qian, Executive Dean of FISF and Professor of Finance, was invited to attend the opening ceremony and give a keynote speech entitled “Digital Currency and Reform of Global Financial System”.

Professor Qian first made it clear that the demand for cross-border payment and the emergence of mobile payment will primarily account for the rapid development of the digital currency system. At present, the constantly evolving digital currency has gradually constructed the global double-layer digital currency framework: the upper-layer system mainly consists of digital currencies issued by the central banks of sovereign states, i.e., central bank digital currencies (CBDC); while the bottom-layer system refers to “decentralized” digital currency system issued by other banks, such as the bitcoin and Ethereum. Qian then mentioned a life scene of buying bread to give a vivid explanation of the operating mechanism of CBDC and lead to the concept of E-CNY and the problems confronting the development of sovereign digital currencies. He believed that E-CNY will be more widely applied to various domestic consumption scenarios, and once used in cross-border payment systems will upgrade the convenience and security of CNY and advance its process of internationalization. Meanwhile, the application of cross-border payment of E-CNY will also be faced with competition of other sovereign and non-sovereign digital currencies, challenges in technology and regulation, as well as other problems that need to be resolved urgently. At last, he expressed that currently there exist two issues to discuss upon E-CNY. One is how should E-CNY successfully realize controllability and anonymity; and the other is how to promote the co-existence of E-CNY and the traditional CNY system. Globally, central banks in many countries and regions are all actively planning to issue sovereign digital currencies, which will have a continuous impact on the traditional monetary and financial system.

The opening ceremony of Shanghai Forum 2021 was hosted by Zhimin Chen, Vice President of Fudan University. Ningsheng Xu, President of Fudan University, and Taiyuan Cui, Board Director and CEO of Korean SK Holdings, gave opening speeches. Besides Professor Jun Qian, Jeffrey Sachs, University Professor of Columbia University, Director of Sustainable Development Center and Three-term Special Adviser to UN Secretary General; Kishore Mahbubani, Former Ambassador to the United Nations and Founding Dean of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at National University of Singapore; Svein Stølen, President of University of Oslo, Norway, Bu Xu, Secretary General of Xi Jin Ping Diplomatic Thought Research Center, Party Secretary and Director of China Institute of International Studies, and China’s Former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to ASEAN and Chile, also participated in giving keynote speeches.

At the opening ceremony of the forum, Fudan Thinktank released Theme Report of Shanghai Forum 2021. Divided into five chapters of public health, finance, economy and trade, carbon neutrality and population, the report was written by the expert team in relevant disciplines at Fudan University. By focusing on the topic of “recovery and resilience” and laying great emphasis on studies on critical issues and trends that have already stood out and will be of greater significance in the future in the field, it proceeds from China and extend to Asia and the whole world, bringing forward the analysis and opinions of Fudan scholars, studying and predicting future development directions and exploring solutions to cope with common challenges.

Shanghai Forum is a large international academic forum hosted by Fudan University and Chey Institute for Advanced Studies in Korea and organized by Fudan Development Institute. Based on Shanghai and depending on the discipline advantages of Fudan University, it has successfully held 16 annual meetings since its establishment in 2005, with over 3000 lecturing guests at home and abroad attending. With the aim of “focusing on Asia, highlighting hot issues, gathering elites, promoting interactions, strengthening cooperation and seeking consensus”, the forum is committed to setting up a platform for the common communication among politicians, businessmen and academics at home and abroad, making in-depth research and explorations revolving major strategic issues and development problems in various fields like global governance, social governance, public security, ecological management, technological innovation and cultural civilization, and making greater contributions to pushing forward human progress, national development and peoples’ livelihoods.

Right now, the world is going through a hard time with double challenges of unprecedented turbulence not seen over a century with the severe pandemic situation around the world. The tremendous changes arising in the past year as well as profound adjustments following will continuously accompany and test the entire human race within a foreseeable period. At this particular historical moment, Shanghai Forum switched from the original topic of “Global Governance and Asia” to “Post-epidemic Civilization: Development, Governance and Security”, expecting to converge minds and provide wisdom for the future development of Asia and the world in a more grand and humanistic way.