Understanding the evolution of China’s approach to digital trade: interests, ideas, and institutions

Amid economic globalisation and the rapid development of advanced technologies in recent years, the world economy has shown an increasing trend of digitalisation, whilst digital trade has become the primary pattern of international trade. Based on differences rooted in socio-political systems, as well as the current precarious geopolitical realities, governments adopt different ideas in accordance with their respective interests in the institutionalisation of digital trade. As the world’s second-largest economy and a major digital power, China’s behaviours and ideological stances attract scholarly attention and states’ concern. Whilst Western countries and scholars have criticised China’s ideas of “government intervention in data regulation” and “cyber sovereignty” applied in its existing approach to digital trade, warning that China’s approach poses a threat to Western powers’ adherence to liberalism in the international digital trade system and the idea of “free data flow” in their approaches to digital trade, there has been insufficient research into how China’s approach to digital trade has evolved over time and which ideas and interests have influenced it. To bridge this gap in the literature, this paper divides the evolution of China’s approach to digital trade over the past three decades (1993–2023) into three phases using a longitudinal approach. This research conducts qualitative content analysis using official documents, white papers, and declarations from official Chinese websites, then adopts the 3I analytical framework to analyse which ideas and interests have influenced China’s approach in each phase and how its approach to digital trade has evolved over time.