Digital Regulation Contested: Regulatory Approaches of the US, the EU, and China to Cross-Border Personal Data Transfers

Abstract

As the role of data has gained prominence in the global digital economy and becomes crucial for the development of cutting-edge technologies, regulatory battles among great powers to set the rules for international personal data transfers increasingly intensify. In the unfolding digital era, the regulatory battles over international personal data transfers have increasingly come to the foreground of great powers rivalry, substantially shaping the emerging transnational digital governance system. Drawing on international relation scholarship on regime complex analysis, this article explores the development of the US, the EU, and China's regulatory approach to govern cross-border flows of personal data.