PATH SELECTION AND OPTIMIZATION STRATEGY OF CROSS-BORDER DATA FLOW RULE COORDINATION BETWEEN CHINA AND MYANMAR

Abstract

With the deep integration of digital economy and regional economic cooperation, cross-border data flow has become a core driving force for the upgrading of China-Myanmar economic and trade cooperation, digital infrastructure interconnection, and border industrial integration. As an important node of the Belt and Road Initiative and the China-Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor, Myanmar has increasingly frequent cross-border data interaction with China in the fields of cross-border e-commerce, digital logistics, border financial services, and public health information sharing. However, significant differences exist between China and Myanmar in data sovereignty governance, data classification supervision, cross-border transmission permission mechanisms, and personal privacy protection systems, resulting in prominent problems such as rule fragmentation, supervision conflicts, data flow barriers, and governance vacuum in bilateral cross-border data flow. These bottlenecks severely restrict the high-quality development of bilateral digital economic cooperation and regional digital integration. This study innovatively constructs a three-dimensional coupling theoretical framework of "institutional rule, technical standard, and governance mechanism" to analyze the current situation, dilemma and internal logic of China-Myanmar cross-border data flow rule coordination. Based on the latest 2025–2026 bilateral digital economy operation data, policy texts and cross-border transaction statistics, this paper sorts out the institutional differences and coordination obstacles of cross-border data rules between the two countries, and explores feasible coordination paths from the dimensions of hierarchical rule docking, technical standard convergence and multi-subject governance collaboration. Furthermore, it proposes targeted optimization strategies in terms of institutional innovation, technical empowerment, supervision coordination and risk prevention, aiming to break bilateral data flow barriers, build a standardized and efficient cross-border data governance system between China and Myanmar, and provide theoretical support and practical reference for digital regional cooperation among South and Southeast Asian countries. This study adopts a new theoretical perspective of multi-dimensional rule coupling, fills the research gap of targeted rule coordination for China-Myanmar cross-border data flow, and enriches the theoretical system of developing country cross-border digital governance.