Dilemmas and Responses to Chinas Cross-border Digital Trade Rules under the Perspective of the Personal Information Protection Law of the Peoples Republic of China

Abstract

The international community has not been able to reach agreement on digital trade rules due to the different choices of value positions and divergent economic interests. The chap-ter on "Rules on the cross-border provision of personal information" in the Personal In-formation Protection Law of the Republic of China provides the basic framework for re-stricting and regulating cross-border data flows in China. It reflects China's value orienta-tion of attaching importance to digital sovereignty and security. The country's determina-tion to further integrate into world trade and compete internationally for economic bene-fits and political status. However, the current rules in the Personal Information Protection Law still have unclear standards, excessive restrictions and conflicts with other laws and regulations. Due to the conservative values of China, there are many rules that are not compatible with the CPTPP rules. It is necessary to interpret Chapter 13 of the Personal Information Protection Law and the general rules, and complete the alignment of several laws and regulations based on the relationship between higher and lower laws and special and general laws. Meanwhile, it is also necessary to refine the specific standards for data flow in practice, so as to finally realize the alignment with the CPTPP.