China’s Path to Regulatory Harmonization of Cross-Border Data Flows

The regulatory harmonization of cross-border flow of data aims to balance the need for value of cross-border flow of data in each country with the differences in the rules governing the regulation of cross-border flow of data, which is related to a country’s data security and national interests. Recently, China has begun to pay attention to the regulation of cross-border flow of data in free trade agreements concluded with foreign countries, but there are still many shortcomings in regulatory harmonization. China’s domestic regulatory rules have fitness barriers to international rules, a single way of engaging in regulatory harmonization, and a weak voice in regulatory harmonization practices. In the existing practice of international regulatory coordination, the U.S. exports U.S. regulatory rules on cross-border flow of data to its trading partners through the formulation of free trade agreements to gain a dominant position in regulatory coordination; the EU relies on the Sufficiency Protection Recognition Agreement (SPRA) to reach a unified regulatory standard on cross-border flow of data in order to grasp the initiative of regulatory coordination. The U.S.-European-led approach to regulatory harmonization of cross-border data flows does not meet the real needs of developing countries.China should establish a unified regulatory body for cross-border data flow at the national level, improve the cross-border data security regulatory mechanism, enrich the ways to participate in international regulatory coordination of cross-border data flow, enhance the flexibility of participation, construct a regulatory coordination mechanism of mutual recognition and mutual recognition within the industry, and provide China’s solutions for the global regulatory coordination of cross-border data flow.