On September 18, 2021, the third internal seminar of Network on International Trade and Investment System (NITIS) was successfully held online. The theme of the seminar was "Regulations for Cross-border Data Flows in E-commerce Negotiations and Data Export Regulations and Practices in China". Professor Hong Yanqing at School of Law, Beijing Institute of Technology, was invited to give a keynote speech. Professor Zhou Nianli at China Institute for WTO Studies, University of International Business and Economics, and Chen Tian, Director of the Data Security Department of the Security Research Institute of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, served as guest commenters. The seminar was hosted by Yi Xiaozhun, General Counsel of NITIS, former Chinese Ambassador to the WTO, and former Deputy Director-General of the WTO.

The topic of Professor Hong Yanqing's keynote speech was "The Strategic Game of Data Sovereignty among China, the United States and Europe: From the Perspective of the Linkage of Domestic Regulation and International Agreements". Professor Hong firstly introduced the relevant regulations on the cross-border flow of data in the international economic and trade rules. Then he took the United States and the European Union as examples to compare the relevant regulatory measures for the cross-border flow of data. Finally, with "Data Security Law" and "Personal Information Protection Law" as the starting point, he analyzed the current level of data flow management in China, made some comments on policy measures and put forward some suggestions of his own.

Professor Zhou Nianli gave a speech on the topic of "Cross-border data flows: empirical evidence, situation and countermeasures". Professor Zhou's speech focused on three aspects: the economic effects of rules on cross-border data flows, the domestic and international situation faced by our country in the cross-border data flows, and policy recommendations.

Later, Director Chen Tian also made comments. From the perspective of domestic regulation, Director Chen believed that our country lacked a coordinated, unified and macro top-level thinking from the two perspectives of development and security, and there was insufficient support in policy formulation for local companies to go overseas. At the same time, legislation in our country is being improved. Now it is an important window period, and the specific operating rules have not yet been fully unified among various departments.

This seminar also invited representatives from relevant enterprises, including Mr. Fu Hongyu from the Data Economy Research Center of AliResearch. In the discussion session, the experts, scholars, and business representatives attending the seminar conducted in-depth discussions on current rules on cross-border data flow, national practices, strategic game of data sovereignty, and China’s countermeasures.

Translator: ZHOU Ruiqiang

Reviewer: WANG Yu