Skip to content
DCC · DATA COMPLIANCE CHINA China data law, for overseas counsel.
§ TAG · CROSS-BORDER

Filed under cross-border

Every brief tagged "cross-border".

  • § 01 · FOREIGN-INVESTMENT-SECURITY-REVIEW

    Why China Used Foreign Investment Security Review on Manus — Not Tech or Data Export

    Hong Yanqing on Beijing's banning of Meta's Manus acquisition. The regulator's choice of pathway — Foreign Investment Security Review, not Technology or Data Export — signals a shift from 'transaction-level' to 'capability-level' oversight of frontier AI projects, with implications for any overseas tech investment touching China.

    foreign-investment-security-review · manus · ai-agent
  • § 02 · CROSS-BORDER

    Cross-Border Data Discovery — How the U.S., EU, and China Each Play Offense and Defense

    When a foreign authority wants data stored in China — or vice versa — three doctrines compete. The U.S. uses a 'data controller standard' (CLOUD Act) that reaches globally on offense and shields domestically through ECPA blocking on defense. The EU uses 'market access' leverage (GDPR Article 3 jurisdictional reach plus Article 48 blocking). China uses a 'data location standard' (territorial sovereignty plus the MLA Law, DSL, and PIPL blocking clauses). Wang Qinglan maps the four discovery paths, the three jurisdictional doctrines, and what compliance teams should build to survive the squeeze.

    cross-border · data-sovereignty · mlat
  • § 03 · CROSS-BORDER

    Mutual Trust Mechanisms for Cross-Border Data Flow — China's 'Trusted Data Space' Bet

    Compliance Talker's global legal policy team analyzes three competing models for cross-border data mutual trust: the EU's 'rule trust' (adequacy + SCC), the US's 'market trust' (CLOUD Act + DPF), and China's 'technology trust' bet on Trusted Data Spaces (TDS). The NDA's November 2024 *TDS Development Action Plan 2024-2028* makes confidential computing, federated learning, and blockchain the technical layer through which China seeks to demonstrate cross-border data flow can be 'usable but invisible.' For overseas teams, this is the most concrete view of where Chinese cross-border data infrastructure is heading.

    cross-border · trusted-data-space · confidential-computing
  • § 04 · IMPORTANT-DATA

    How to Identify 'Important Data' — A Plain-Language Method from Wang Qinglan

    Wang Qinglan, head of compliance at a Chinese data exchange, walks through China's unique 'important data' concept in plain language: where it came from, why no other major jurisdiction has anything quite like it, how the U.S., EU, Japan and Korea solve the same problem differently, and — most useful for compliance teams — three methods to identify whether a dataset is 'important' in practice. Her own 'unorthodox' shortcut: ask whether a hostile foreign actor could use this data to cause trouble. If yes, treat it as important data.

    important-data · data-classification · cross-border
  • § 05 · CROSS-BORDER

    FTZ Data Export Negative Lists — How 17 Sectors Across Seven Provinces Now Identify Important Data

    Article 6 of the 2024 CBDF Provisions authorized Free Trade Zones to publish data-export negative lists. Since then, Tianjin, Beijing, Hainan, Shanghai, Zhejiang and others have published negative lists covering 17 sectors — automotive, pharmaceuticals, retail, civil aviation, reinsurance, deep-sea industry, seed industry, and more. Compliance Talker's analysis walks through the structural convergence of the negative lists, the important-data identification refinements each FTZ has produced, and the operational impact on enterprises both inside and outside the FTZs.

    cross-border · important-data · ftz-negative-list
§ SUBSCRIBE

The Monday brief.

One short email every Monday. New briefs on Chinese data-compliance rules from the previous week, with the source law cited.

Opt-in only. Unsubscribe anytime by replying "unsubscribe" to any issue.