Global Digital Economic and Trade Rules: Progress, Trends and China’s Response

Under the background of profound changes in the international situation and the rapid development of digital technology, global digital economic and trade rules show some new trends, which are mainly manifested in: increasing emphasis on the interoperability of digital systems, anti-liberalization trend in the field of cross-border data flow, artificial intelligence becoming the priority field of big country games, and digital standards becoming the key to global digital economic and trade governance. In recent years, China has continuously improved its digital economic and trade laws and regulations, and actively integrated into the global digital economic and trade governance system. However, China’s related digital trade ideas are basically embodied in the first generation of economic and trade rules such as paperless trade and personal information protection, and its commitments on core issues such as cross-border data flow and source code protection are limited, resulting in a gap between China’s digital economic and trade rules and high-standard agreements, insufficient compatibility with relevant rules, and relatively low voice in global digital trade. In this regard, China should conform to the new trend of global digital economy and trade development, accelerate the multilateral and bilateral digital economy and trade negotiations, strengthen digital technology innovation, speed up the formulation of priority issues such as cross-border data flow and artificial intelligence, improve the compatibility and interoperability of relevant rules, expand institutional openness, and enhance digital economy and trade governance capacity.