PANELISTS

Paul TRIOLO
Senior Vice President for China and Technology Policy Lead, Dentons Global Advisors-Albright Stonebridge Group (ASG) 

Denis SIMON
Senior Advisor to the President for China Affairs, Professor
Duke University

Kendra SCHAEFER
Partner and Head of Tech Policy Research, Trivium China

Sourabh GUPTA
Senior Fellow and Head of Trade ‘n Technology Program, Institute for China-America Studies (ICAS)

MODERATOR
Yawei LIU
Senior Advisor, China Focus, Carter Center

Data is the lifeblood of the digital economy. It is also an arena of fierce maneuvering as China and the United States seek to gain a leg-up in key industries that will define the Fourth Industrial Revolution. President Xi Jinping has emphasized the need to deepen the integration of Internet, big data and artificial intelligence with the real economy, and in just the past few months a number of important regulations have been issued. These include: (a) a revised cybersecurity regulation for network platform operators (stemming from the Didi Chuxing IPO debacle), (b) proposed security assessment rules for cross-border data export, and (c) proposed unified network data security regulations to implement China’s Data Security Law (DSL), Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) and Cybersecurity Law. For his part, President Biden issued an executive order in June 2021 on protecting Americans’ sensitive data from foreign adversaries, and the Commerce Department followed up in November 2021 with a proposed rule that could well lead to platforms like TikTok being subjected to third-party auditing and monitoring of user data logs. Earlier, the Trump administration’s Treasury Department had enumerated ten categories of sensitive personal data to be placed beyond the reach of foreign adversaries.

What are the drivers behind the U.S. and China’s divergent approaches on data sovereignty? What are the key takeaways from these rules and regulations? Who are the key players involved?  What are the investment implications for entrepreneurs and investors on both sides? And as the two sides seek to influence the Indo-Pacific’s cross-border data flow rules and standards, what are the implications of their increasingly mutually decoupled data universes for regional partners as well as for realizing a region-wide digital trade agreement?