I understand that they are prioritizing their residents first because it is their own digital currency.
So their move is to actually gain adoption among its citizens. And that is expected on their part.
Being a centralized coin, if they will open to global users, are those users willing to submit their KYC docs just to own this digital yuan?
I guess not many users will be happy to send their docs to the Chinese authority. So don't fret that they are not opening this opportunity to nonresidents.