Research On Measures Taken By TPP To Regulate Digital Trade Barrier

Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement(TPP)is considered to be the most important and comprehensive regional free trade agreement(FTA)at present.Its coverage is very extensive.Even if the United States announced its withdrawal from the TPP,making it almost impossible for it to take effect,but it will still have a significant impact on the formulation of future trade rules.The regulation of digital trade barriers as the core content of the e-commerce chapter is undoubtedly an important part of the TPP.As far as China is concerned,the feature of the China-Korea,China-Australia FTA compared with the previous China FTA is that it has a special chapter on the contents of e-commerce.However,the obvious problem is that the measures for regulating digital trade barriers in the FTA signed by China are still far from the TPP-related regulations.Therefore,it is of great significance to analyze and master the measures in the TPP on regulating digital trade barriers,to grasp the latest direction of the international rules for regulating digital trade barriers,and to develop relevant rules for the regulation of digital trade barriers in China.This article from the following five parts to research TPP's measures of regulating digital trade barriers,the main contents are as follows:Part I: The basic theory of TPP's measures of regulating digital trade barriers.The main purpose of this section is to introduce the motivation behind the TPP's inclusion in the regulation of digital barriers to trade and to clarify the relationship between related concepts.The article introduces the concepts of digital products,digital commerce and e-commerce,as well as the impact of the absence of the WTO's digital trade rules and the urgent need of all countries for a unified international digital trade rules in the context of the explosive growth of cross-border data flows In order to have a clearer understanding of the development of TPP's measures to regulate digital trade barriers.Part II: TPP regulates the tariff for digital trade barriers.This part compares the relevant measures of WTO,EU and China with TPP 14.3 Customs Duties.Unlike the TPP's position on the implementation of permanent zero-tariff for digital products,the WTO's tariff measures have only been implemented through the “Global Declaration on Electronic Commerce”.Not only is the effect less direct than legal documents,but it is also prone to divergences in practice.Due to the EU's protection of its own digital industries,tariff policies on digital products have shifted from zero-tariff to appropriate tariff protection policies.While China implements zero tariff on digital products,it also reserves the right to adjust the tariff.Part III: TPP regulates the non-discriminatory treatment for digital trade barriers.This part mainly analyzes TPP 14.4 non-discriminatory treatment of digital products,with the WTO negotiation process,comparative analysis with the relevant provisions of the EU and China.Because the disputes over the treatment of digital trade should be argued by countries in the world,the WTO has not made unified provisions on this issue.Both China and the EU are more inclined to classify digital trade as service trade and determine their treatment according to the basis of commitments.In order to avoid this dispute,TPP not only directly included non-discriminatory treatment in the terms of digital trade,but also specified that it would not solve the problem of whether digital trade should be classified as service trade or goods trade.Part IV: TPP regulates the threshold of market access for digital trade barriers.This section mainly deals with cross-border data flow,data localization and source code.In terms of cross-border data flow,unlike TPP's global view of promoting free flow of data,regardless of the relevant regulations of the WTO,EU,or China,certain restrictions have been placed on cross-border data flows;in data localization,the EU The requirements for data localization in China and China are contrary to the TPP prohibition of data localization;in terms of source code,although the EU and China have not required foreign suppliers to transfer source codes when entering their home markets,both Chinese and financial The implementation of source code supervision in the digital form of the tool or the EU's move to force Microsoft to share the source code in practice is inconsistent with the TPP regulations.Part V: The revelation to China from the measures of regulating Digital Trade Barrier by TPP.In this part,we will combine China's specific situation and the current situation of China's measures to regulate digital trade barriers,considering the practical significance for China to regulate digital trade barriers in TPP,promoting the improvement of relevant laws and regulations in China,and providing reference for China to conclude FTAs and participate in the formulation of international rules for digital trade.