I still don't quite get the difference between e-RMB and digital money on one's phone wallet.
Many digital wallet today such as wechat pay or ali pay are merely a digital interface to draw your debt card or credit card. They
are not digital money at all. They work as if you manually drawing your plastic card on a cash machine.
e-RMB on the other hand is equal to paper money in your wallet or numbers in your bank account. You can
have all your money in e-RMB form in your phone
without a bank account. This is true digital money.
I mean, I get that e-RMB is supposed to be a state-sanctioned bitcoin, but if I wanna buy a baozi from a shop, do they work the same way, through a digital wallet?
"state sanctioned bitcoin" is a close analog. To be more precise, e-RMB is state issued money based on block-chain technology. Block-chain is like the paper medium.
e-RMB uses block chain tech (or variant) same as bitcoin. But e-RMB is issued by the central bank just like its paper counter part. Bitcoin is not, there is no legal entity guaranteeing its value. So on technology level e-RMB and Bitcoin work the same way. But they are fundamentally different things.
Since e-RMB is just digital form of its paper counter part, both you and the baozi shop could, would and should treat it as normal RMB. For bitcoin, nobody is obligated to use it, nor is anybody to guarantee that your bitcoin is accepted anywhere. Your bitcoin wealth can vaporize in a second.
Is the fundamental aspect of e-RMB its traceability through blockchain?
I know nothing of traceability of e-RMB. But since the underline technology is similar, I'd say yes.