As our very own Peter Lee put it: “The question is not whether the world is ready to be trusted by Libra, but whether Libra and Facebook are fit to be trusted by anybody.”
China is probably low on the list of places Facebook might have hoped to find vocal support. And so it has proved. Huang Qifan, the former mayor of Chongqing, used his keynote address at Shanghai’s Bund Summit on October 28 to call it “delusional”.
“If commercial companies can issue various currencies, this world will be in chaos,” he says. “That is equivalent to returning to the primitive society.”
He thinks bitcoin is delusional too, which is a striking take since China is responsible for about 70% of its mining worldwide.
Delusional
Huang is in an interesting position to observe the delusional. He worked with Bo Xilai to drive Chongqing’s extraordinary economic boom in the middle of this decade.
Bo, however, went to jail on corruption charges and is serving life in Qincheng prison.
Huang has fared considerably better.