I don't know many specifics but I agree with you, the possible motivations and goals behind a chinese e-currency are a bit unsettling.
What's unsettling about eCurrency? Any government can issue one if it chooses to do so. Unlike crypto currency, it's backed by a government, not just a blockchain and blind faith. Some government e-currencies will use blockchain, others will operate far more rapidly by using systems similar to the big credit card companies.
Some of those US stimulus checks arrived as checks, others arrived as pre-paid credit cards, and others as electronic deposits into people's bank accounts. The final one in my list is really no different than "US e-dollars arriving in someone's e-wallet." How is sending $50 to a friend using PayPal not effectively the same as using a hypothetical government digital wallet?
China already has 2 major companies offering e-wallets that allow people to store e-money directly in the system or to transfer cash in and out of bank accounts very similarly to PayPal. Nearly all shops there (even stalls at vegetable markets, according to my sources) allow payments to be done via smartphone using one or both systems. Just scan the shop's barcode, type in the amount, and hit send.
Do you still feel unsettled by the motivations and goals of electronic transfer of digital cash by a government? If so, close your PayPal account and your bank account. Then you can pay for everything using non-government cryptos or physical cash.
China will do anything to become the world power.
China has over 1.4 Billion people and is working hard to improve living conditions and provide good jobs. If the US doesn't stop sitting around being happy with stock market and instead focus on growing the real economy, China and India only have to keep working to improve their own economies to easily pass the US GDP.
Do you think China should send all its workers (quite a few of them work to make the cell phones and computers people use for their forex trading) back to working on farms so that the USA can automatically remain the country with the highest GDP instead of having to put some effort into holding onto the #1 slot? Should India try to reduce its economic growth to avoid being the next target of US hatred because another country actually tries to help its own people and its own economy enough to produce a greater total value of goods and service than the US?