Even before the Olympic flame goes out at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, the heat is growing among US lawmakers and Chinese officials.

During a press conference on Tuesday, Chinese State Department spokesman Zhao Lijian sent a warning letter from US senators to the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee regarding the use of the digital yuan in next year’s Olympics.

Lijian urged US politicians to “obey the spirit of the Olympic Charter,” and urged them to “stop treating sport as a political issue and not causing problems for digital currencies in China,” the South China Morning Post reported .

Lijian alleged that the recent measures were incomprehensible and suggested that US lawmakers “figure out what a digital currency really is.

Earlier this week, Republican Senators Marsha Blackburn, Roger Wicker and Cynthia Lummis wrote a letter to US Olympic and Paralympic Committee President Susanne Lyons. Citing claims that the digital yuan could be “tracked and tracked” by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), three officials were asked to prevent American athletes from using or accepting Chinese digital currency.

The senators claim the Chinese Communist Party can use digital currency to interview visiting athletes when they return to the US, saying that the new features of the digital yuan will allow Chinese officials “to know the exact details of what someone is.” where has bought “.

In the letter, all three applied to the Senate Committee for Trade, Science and Transport to be briefed on the subject within 30 days.

Related: U.S. lawmakers don’t want Olympic athletes to use the digital yuan in 2022 games

China, on the other hand, regards the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing scheduled for next year as the first test of the Chinese central bank’s digital currency by foreign users.

Speaking at the Boao Forum for Asia in April, PBoC Vice Governor Li Bo said, “For the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics, we have been trying to make e-CNY available not only for domestic use but also for international athletes and people such as tourists. ”