---
title: "When Does Data Become an Asset? Xu Ke on Identifying and Defining Data Assets"
author: "DCC Editorial"
published: 2026-05-28T08:15:00.000Z
url: https://datacompliancechina.com/posts/xu-ke-data-asset-identification/
description: "Xu Ke (UIBE), writing for a practitioner audience, draws the line between data resource (国家视角, public/strategic) and data asset (市场主体视角, commercial), then between the broad sense (anything that creates value for the enterprise) and the narrow sense (meets the MOF accounting-standard test for on-balance-sheet recognition — owned/controlled, generates economic benefit, reliably measurable). He works the three-rights framework into operational boundaries by data type (personal / enterprise / government) and flags the practical questions overseas counsel face when a Chinese counterparty wants to put data on its balance sheet."
tags: ["data-asset", "data-property-rights", "data-on-balance-sheet", "data-economy", "commentary"]
laws_cited: ["data-foundation-system-opinions", "pipl", "public-data-authorized-operation-specifications", "data-property-rights-registration-guide-draft"]
domains: ["data-economy", "personal-information"]
account: "xu-ke"
original_title: "数据资产的识别与界定"
original_author: "许可 (Xu Ke), UIBE"
original_publication: "《企业家》杂志 (Entrepreneur Magazine); reposted via 企业家杂志 WeChat Official Account"
original_url: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/i8LzBioix-fTBB-_FcGC-g"
source_language: "zh"
---
> *Editor's Note — DCC.*
>
> Xu Ke's two other pieces DCC published today are deep doctrine — the
> [anonymization reconstruction](/posts/xu-ke-anonymization-zombie-provision/)
> and the [rights-block structure](/posts/xu-ke-data-rights-block-structure/).
> This one, written for *Entrepreneur Magazine*, is the practitioner-
> facing complement: when does data actually become an *asset* a Chinese
> enterprise can put on its books, and how do the three rights map onto
> operational boundaries? It's the most directly useful of the three for
> overseas counsel doing transactional or accounting-adjacent work with
> Chinese counterparties — particularly as China's "data on balance
> sheet" (数据入表) movement gathers pace.

## Resource vs asset — the two viewpoints

Xu Ke's first distinction is between two vantage points:

- **Data resource (数据资源) — the national viewpoint.** Introduced in the State Council's 2015 *Action Outline for Promoting Big Data Development*, "data resource" is a macro-economic positioning emphasizing data's *public attributes* and *strategic value*.
- **Data asset (数据资产) — the market-actor viewpoint.** An enterprise's commercial framing: whether data can produce *actual value in business activity*.

Two essential differences follow:

1. **Data resource carries plural interests** — public, individual, and enterprise. Data with strong public attributes or involving personal privacy can't be monopolized by an enterprise; from the national view it's an important resource, but it can't all be classed as enterprise assets. Data asset, by contrast, must point clearly to the enterprise's *commercial scenario*.
2. **Data asset has a narrow and a broad sense:**
   - **Narrow (accounting) sense** — meets the Ministry of Finance's *Enterprise Accounting Standards* test: the data can be owned or effectively controlled by the enterprise, can bring economic benefit, and its cost or value can be reliably measured — thus eligible for **"data on balance sheet" (数据入表)** as an accounting-recognized data asset.
   - **Broad sense** — any data that creates value for the enterprise.

## The three-part asset test

Xu Ke gives enterprises a practical three-question test for whether their data has asset character:

1. **Does the data serve the enterprise's core business activity?**
2. **Can the enterprise own or effectively control the data?**
3. **Is there a clear value-realization (monetization) path?**

His example: user-behavior data accumulated by an internet enterprise has asset character *if* it can be analyzed to optimize products or run precision marketing — i.e., if there's a realization path.

## Mapping the three rights onto operational boundaries

The practitioner payoff: Xu Ke works the [three-rights framework](/posts/nda-three-rights-structural-separation/) into concrete operating boundaries by right and by data type.

**By right:**

- **Hold right (持有权)** — attribution of the original data resource; the defensive perimeter against others stealing, tampering, leaking, or destroying the held data.
- **Use right (使用权)** — the right to process, analyze, apply; needs a defined scope, method, and compliance boundary. His example: a hospital using patient data for research must comply with PIPL and *ensure anonymization* to protect patient privacy — directly linking the use-right boundary to the [anonymization standard](/posts/xu-ke-anonymization-zombie-provision/).
- **Operate right (经营权)** — commercialization of data products: authorization, trading, services. His example: when selling a processed data product to a third party, the parties must define rights and obligations clearly to ensure compliant circulation.

**By data type:**

- **Personal data** — use right must strictly follow PIPL and related rules.
- **Enterprise operational data** — operate right is more market-regulated (left to the market).
- **Government data** — public attribute must be clear; commercial use is limited to prevent private capture of public resources.

## What this tells overseas compliance teams

- **Distinguish "data asset" (accounting) from "data we find valuable" (everything).** When a Chinese counterparty talks about its "data assets," clarify which sense — narrow (on-balance-sheet, MOF-standard-qualified) or broad (anything valuable). The narrow sense carries specific ownership/control, economic-benefit, and measurability requirements that bear on valuation, due diligence, and deal structuring.

- **The three-question asset test is a useful diligence screen.** When valuing or acquiring a Chinese entity's data assets, run Xu Ke's test: core-business nexus, ownership/control, realization path. Data that fails any prong is unlikely to survive as a recognized asset — relevant to purchase-price allocation and rep-and-warranty scoping.

- **Anonymization is the use-right boundary for personal data.** Xu Ke ties the use right for personal data directly to PIPL compliance and anonymization. If a deal contemplates using personal-data-derived assets, the anonymization posture (and its [risk-based, continuously-monitored standard](/posts/yao-qian-pi-anonymization-relativity/)) is the gating compliance question — not an afterthought.

- **Data-on-balance-sheet is a live and growing practice.** China's 数据入表 movement (data assets recognized on corporate balance sheets under MOF rules effective 2024) means Chinese counterparties increasingly carry data assets on their books. Overseas counsel doing M&A, financing, or audit-adjacent work should expect to encounter recognized data assets and should understand the recognition basis (which traces back to the three-rights hold/control determination).

- **Government-data commercial use is fenced.** Where a deal touches government / public data, the operate right is constrained — public attribute must be preserved, commercial use limited. Don't assume government-data-derived products can be freely commercialized; the public-data authorized-operation regime governs.

The connective point across Xu Ke's three pieces: the [rights-block structure](/posts/xu-ke-data-rights-block-structure/) defines *what kind of thing* data rights are; the [anonymization reconstruction](/posts/xu-ke-anonymization-zombie-provision/) defines *how personal data exits the PI regime to become freely usable*; and this piece defines *when the resulting data becomes a recognized, monetizable, balance-sheet asset*. Together they trace the full arc from raw data to recognized asset — which is exactly the arc a multinational structuring a Chinese data transaction has to walk.

---

— *许可, 数据资产的识别与界定 (Identifying and Defining Data Assets), 《企业家》杂志 (Entrepreneur Magazine); reposted via 企业家杂志 WeChat Official Account. [Original article (Chinese).](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/i8LzBioix-fTBB-_FcGC-g)*

*Not legal advice. The above is DCC's structured summary of Xu Ke's analysis, with framing for overseas counsel; the resource/asset and narrow/broad distinctions, the three-question test, and the rights-by-data-type mapping are Xu Ke's.*