Data advantages can boost country's competitiveness

The more the United States strives to enforce a "digital hegemony" in cyberspace－with its smash-and-grab of ByteDance's TikTok US operations as a case in point－the more China should try to accelerate the development of its digital economy. Not only to entrench its status as a growth engine, but also to enable the country to better protect its "digital sovereignty".

Like it or not, data is becoming a core production element and fundamental resource in human society, making it a strategic property that all countries struggle for. That's why cyberspace and data are now regarded as new focuses of international geopolitical competition.

Although the European Union encourages the free flow of information among its members, its emphases on data security and supervision are no less stringent than those of the US when it comes to dealing with parties outside of the bloc.

That being said, China needs to strengthen its regulation and expedite its legislation on data security in order to prevent its data and IT enterprises from being snatched by foreign countries.

Since the country has laws on the protection of other kinds of production elements out of national security concerns, such as energy resources, technology, capital and food, it is only a matter of time before digital elements, in the forms of data and algorithms, are subject to protection under the law.

The adjustment of the country's catalog for technologies subject to bans or restrictions on exports, through which the State tightened up its protection of algorithms and some cutting-edge data-related technologies, can be seen as its latest efforts to enhance its national digital security and a step toward bringing them under the protective umbrella of the law.

China needs to make full use of its advantages in the digital economy and technology to actively take part in the rulemaking for cyberspace and the data market to promote healthy competition and let the advancement of information technology better serve the people.