The Basic Situation Of International Rulemaking For Cross-Bordere-Commerce And China's Practice

Global e-commerce has become a highlight and new growth point of the world economy.As one of the subsectors,cross-border e-commerce has seen explosive growth since 2012.Compared with traditional trade,cross-border e-commerce conducts the search,order and payment of goods and services through the Internet,delivers physical goods through offline logistics or delivers digital products and services directly through the Internet digital transmission,which is global,intangible,paperless,high-frequency and small-batch.Electronic contracts,cross-border data flow and exchange,transactions of digital products and services and trade facilitation measures involved in cross-border e-commerce are not explicitly reflected in the GATT,GATS,TRIPs and FTA.The current WTO rules are no longer applicable in the field of cross-border e-commerce.In recent years,the international community has been actively exploring the establishment of international rules for cross-border e-commerce.China has made a lot of innovative achievements in the commercial operation of crossborder e-commerce as well as relevant policies and regulations,but it is difficult to coordinate the interest demands of various stakeholders in WTO members,which makes the construction of relevant rules remain slow.This paper combines the methods of literature research,data analysis,text analysis and case study to obtain the relevant data of global cross-border e-commerce from multiple perspectives,and interprets some WTO rules and Chinese domestic crossborder e-commerce rules.It starts with defining the difference between Cross-border ecommerce and traditional trade,and summarizes the cross-border digital goods and services trade,cross-border retail trade pattern and paperless trade related issues.Then it clarifies the existing market access rules,regulatory rules and terms of trade facilitation under the WTO framework and their inadaptability of cross-border ecommerce,and proposes ideas of building international rules for cross-border ecommerce,so as to illustrate the necessity of building the international rules for crossborder e-commerce,the goals to achieve,and specific suggestions for the international rules.Thus it clarifies the basic situation of international cross-border e-commerce rules.At the same time,the paper will offer suggestions in the formulation of cross-border ecommerce rules,and analyze the interest demands of various countries and the possibility of interest coordination,to point out the reference significance of China's practical experience for the formulation of international rules,and promotes China's discourse power in the formulation and revision of international rules.This paper first introduces the status of development of the global cross-border ecommerce.The market size characteristics of global cross-border e-commerce are demonstrated through data analysis.The data show that retail e-commerce and crossborder e-commerce are the two fastest growing fields in global e-commerce.It is predicted that cross-border e-commerce will grow by about 17 percent from 2017 to 2022,and cross-border online retail will grow by about 25 percent.Internet infrastructure,logistics infrastructure,customs procedures and data regulations also reflect the improving trade environment of cross-border e-commerce.Cross-border B2 C e-commerce has a high market concentration,and the asia-pacific region is the most dynamic region for cross-border e-commerce,while China and the United States are the world's largest e-commerce players.The relevant concepts of digital trade in cross-border e-commerce are clarified,and the differences between cross-border ecommerce and traditional trade in the types of goods and services,payment methods and delivery methods of goods are compared.The comparison shows the rise of digital trade in cross-border e-commerce and its impact on the way audio,video,publishing,games and computer software products are traded.Traditional trade mostly contains large quantities of B2 B import and export,while cross-border e-commerce is more small trade oriented to individual consumers.The transaction amount of a single order is small and the transaction frequency is high.The delivery is completed by express delivery,involving a large number of small packages.Besides,there are a large number of paperless operations in cross-border e-commerce,enabling buyers and sellers to realize instant information exchange through the Internet.According to these characteristics of cross-border e-commerce and existing WTO rules,the inapplicability of existing rules in this field is summarized from five aspects: the rules of electronic transmission in online ordering and payment,the rules of digital information physical carrier of origin of goods,goods customs clearance and after phase rules,cross-border electricity digital trade rules(including the classification problem of digital products,intellectual property protection problems,problems caused by the application of agreement on import licensing procedures and tariff problems),cross-border electrical infrastructure and the related regulatory issues(including the public telecommunications network access problems,abuse of general exception clauses in GATS and consumer personal information and consumption data issues).In view of the inapplicability of these rules,combined with the existing regional free trade agreements,domestic regulations and relevant proposals submitted to the WTO in developed countries such as Europe and the United States that contain relevant provisions on cross-border e-commerce,this paper puts forward targeted suggestions on the formulation of international rules on cross-border e-commerce,which are mainly divided into four categories.The definition and classification of the cross-border electricity problem,open market problem(including the non-discrimination principle and tariff policy,support for cross-border data flows),trade facilitation problem(including transparency,emphasizes the recognition of the paperless trade,strengthen customs clearance facilitation measures and build a single window)and regulation problem(including stop illegal trade,protection of consumer privacy and data security and protection of intellectual property rights).Although existing practical experience for cross-border electricity international rules put forward constructive suggestions,in reality the progress is very slow,so this article analyzes the cause of the slow progress of cross-border e-commerce negotiations in WTO,that is,developed countries,developing countries and least developed countries have different interest demands in the formulation of cross-border e-commerce rules.The existence of "digital divide" leads to different key issues that developed countries,developing countries and least developed countries pay attention to in the discussion of cross-border e-commerce rules.The process of members coordinating interest conflicts under the WTO mechanism will have an impact on the formulation of cross-border e-commerce rules.Finally,the paper introduces the present situation of cross-border e-commerce market scale,cross-border e-commerce platform and related support services in China,and summarizes the achievements of cross-border e-commerce rulemaking in China's domestic policies and regulations,as well as cross-border e-commerce comprehensive experimental zone for the rules of innovation represented by Hangzhou city.The paper introduces Chinese experience in cross-border e-commerce payments,trade facilitation and customs supervision,tariff policy and credit system construction and quality management.And analyze the practical experience of China's experience in terms of trade facilitation,tariff policy,combating illegal trade and establishing data standards for reference in the formulation of international rules for cross-border e-commerce,as well as the possibility of gaining more attention for developing countries and least developed countries.