Digital Trade: New Power of Economic Recovery and New Frontier of Great Power Game

Data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) show that the global trade in digital services (exports) reached US $3,192.59 billion in 2019, up 3.75% against the trend and accounting for 12.9% of global trade. After the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, the development of digital trade is further accelerated. It is expected that digital trade will continue to play an important role in the world economic recovery in 2021, and the game surrounding it will also affect the economic recovery and growth prospects of all countries in the future.

While driving a new round of globalization, digital trade will not only subversively change the division of labor in the global value chain and reshape the pattern of globalization, but also further intensify the intensity and intensity of competition among major countries. Digital trade and rules competition will become the new frontier of great power game, and the competition for advanced digital technology will become the "new track" of global digital competition.

At present, the world's major powers are engaged in fierce competition over cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, 5G and big data. Only those countries that master advanced digital technology can master first-mover advantage in the fierce competition in digital trade.

At a time when great power competition is escalating, the "new track" of competing for digital sovereignty among countries will profoundly change the global economic pattern, interest pattern and security pattern. In the case of the European Union, one of the three core goals of its new trade policy report, published in February, was to shape the rules of global trade.

At present, the main direction of global digital trade rules has been shifting from the "on the border" rules on access such as tariffs and shareholding restrictions to the extension of "behind the border" rules on industrial policy, intellectual property rights, environment, investment, state-owned enterprises, competition laws, government procurement, and industry supervision. Members will be bound not only by trade rules, but also by domestic regulations. Digital regulation behind the border has increasingly become an important part of international trade rules. Developed countries, represented by the United States, Japan and Europe, took the lead in putting forward digital trade rules and proposals, and externalized them into bilateral and regional trade agreements. They also tried to "customize rules and regulations" for digital trade through the main position of digital trade negotiations.

Digital trade competition and the trend of rules game will have a wide and far-reaching impact on the future pattern of world economic and trade industry. In this sense, digital trade is an important means for China to win the initiative of digital competition in the future, and it is also the breakthrough of institutional opening and the construction of a new system of open economy. China should serve the strategic deployment of building a digital China, comprehensively promote the construction of relevant institutions and top-level design, clarify digital trade policies and foreign negotiation positions, actively participate in international digital trade rule-making and economic and trade negotiations, strive to break through the potential pressure of "rule encircle" from the United States and Europe, and strengthen the dominance of rules.