Differences In Rules Governing Digital Trade Barriers In RTAs And China’s Response

The advent of the digital trade era has brought many new things and opportunities to the world,but also brought many challenges,and the development and improvement of digital trade rules has become a new problem for global trade rules.The WTO’s digital multilateral trade rules have been gradually shelved due to the slow progress of negotiations,and countries have begun to turn to the establishment of RTAs to promote digital trade and remove digital trade barriers.But why are there differences in the regulation of barriers to digital trade in RTAs? Which rule is more reasonable? And how can China give full play to its advantages in the era of digital trade,establish and improve international digital trade rules with Chinese characteristics,and provide Chinese solutions for its development? These are important objects that this article focuses on.The article is mainly divided into four parts.The first part first identifies the relevant basic concepts,expounds and analyzes the basic principles of international digital trade: the difference between digital trade and e-commerce,this paper believes that the connotation of the two is the same,only the words are different,and both are enriched with the passage of time and technological development,and the term "digital trade" is mostly used for linguistic consistency.Subsequently,the existing international digital trade rules were sorted out,and it was found that the multilateral digital trade rules under the WTO framework have been established for a long time but have not yet been established,while bilateral digital trade agreements have greater arbitrariness,the difference is that the digital trade rules in RTAs have achieved good development in recent years.Therefore,from the perspective of RTAs,this paper selects four representative regional trade agreements-CPTPP,DEPA,RCEP and USMCA for analysis.The second part takes four typical RTAs as samples,selects rules involving digital trade barriers and their regulation in its digital trade/e-commerce chapter,and divides the relevant rules into digital tax rules,non-discriminatory treatment rules,data flow and localization rules and data information protection rules according to the classification of digital trade barriers.Based on the analysis of how these digital barriers to trade are constructed,the provisions of each rule are collated and compared horizontally,and it is found that different RTAs have differences in the same rule setting,for example: RCEP allows Cambodia and Laos to postpone the implementation of the "cross-border transmission of information by electronic means" clause,while other RTAs do not have such provisions;There are no exceptions to the USMCA "Computer Facility Location" clause,and exceptions are set for other RTAs.Sorting out these differences raises the question: Why are there differences in the rules governing the same digital barriers to trade? Which provision is more reasonable?The third part analyzes the reasons behind the differences in the rules governing digital trade barriers—the conflict between the demand for multi-approach protection and the free development of digital trade.Many of the policies and regulations that may have the effect of digital trade barriers are established for reasons such as protecting personal information and privacy,national security interests,and reasonable trade balance,and not all of them have "illegal" intentions,and even most of them are established from the perspective of safeguarding reasonable legal interests.However,due to the different political and national conditions of various countries,the different levels of economic and scientific and technological development,and the different national cultures and public orders,they have had interactive effects within the scope of economic globalization.It is undeniable that digital trade barriers will indeed affect the development of digital trade and have a greater negative effect,but how to measure the criteria for determining trade protectionism,the definition of digital trade barriers,and the reasonable level of rules regulating trade barriers,the solution of these problems is more reasonable and more important than blindly emphasizing the free flow of data and eliminating all barriers as much as possible.Later,this article discusses the possibility of mutual recognition between different rules,through the "US-EU Safe Harbor Agreement",the feasibility of mutual recognition between different rules is not very high,mainly because it has great instability,through the analysis of this paper believes that the establishment of multilateral mechanisms under the WTO framework,and the timely and effective docking of RTAs with them is the real way to effectively regulate digital trade barriers,in the final analysis,we should promote the establishment of a unified world digital trade rules agreement.Based on the previous exploration,the fourth part puts forward suggestions for the regulation of digital trade barriers from a Chinese perspective: starting from China’s own perspective,three suggestions are put forward: it is necessary to build a domestic legal framework to lay a good foundation for international negotiations;It is necessary to find a balance between data flow and legal interest protection,and adhere to the position of protecting national security interests;It is necessary to promote the establishment of preferential treatment rules for developing countries,reject "one size fits all",and unite the forces of developing countries to speak out together.Starting from the establishment of global rules,it is proposed that the establishment of the WTO digital trade agreement should be promoted,and the establishment of regulatory rules,exception rules and other rules should be used to balance the conflict between rights protection and digital trade freedom.