“China is implementing the Cyber Great Power strategy and the National Big Data Strategy; advancing the deep fusion of the Internet, big data, artificial intelligence with the real economy; building Digital China and Smart Society; and advancing digital industrialization and industrial digitalization.”

Politburo Standing Committee member and Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang Keynote Opening Speech to the Fourth UN World Data Forum in Hangzhou, April 24, 2023

Whether China’s data strategy will succeed remains uncertain. Even Chinese experts describe the task as monumental and complex. What is clear, however, is that the effort is real, comprehensive, and accelerating. 

The Fourth UN World Data Forum opened in Hangzhou in April 2023 under the motto “Embracing Data for a Win-Win Future” (拥抱数据 共赢未来). While the slogan sounded like standard UN language, it was strategically curated. The Leading Party Members Group from China’s National Bureau of Statistics, which is managing the event in China, selected this specific motto from 710 global proposals, choosing a phrase that is instantly recognizable to Party members as a signal of political priority.

Placed in context, the forum revealed something more consequential: the convergence of China’s domestic data governance agenda with its emerging international ambitions in the data domain.

In his congratulatory letter to the forum, Xi Jinping welcomed international data cooperation, but explicitly framed it within the Global Development Initiative. Data cooperation, in other words, was welcome so long as it aligned with Beijing’s preferred global governance architecture. The pieces of China’s global digital vision are beginning to come together.

China is willing to work with countries around the world to deepen international data cooperation under the framework of the Global Development Initiative, help implement the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with “data-driven governance,” and work together to build an open and win-win pattern of international cooperation in the digital domain to promote the common development and progress of all countries. 中国愿同世界各国一道，在全球发展倡议框架下深化国际数据合作，以“数据之治”助力落实联合国2030年可持续发展议程，携手构建开放共赢的数据领域国际合作格局，促进各国共同发展进步。

“Xi Jinping Sends Congratulatory Letter to the Fourth UN World Data Forum,” People’s Daily, Page One, April 25, 2023

At the same time, three major developments were unfolding at home.

First, Beijing released a new national-level plan for Digital China, formally strengthening the strategy’s international component for the first time and emphasizing the circulation of data resources. Second, the National People’s Congress advanced a proposal to create the National Data Administration under the National Development and Reform Commission, consolidating data governance functions previously spread across multiple agencies. Third, China prepared to host the UN’s premier global data forum in Hangzhou, the capitol of Zhejiang province, a city symbolically linked to Xi’s early experimentation with digitalized development. Xi launched “Digital Zhejiang” in 2003 while serving as Zhejiang Party secretary. The location is now considered by the Party to be the birthplace of China’s first efforts at the digitalized transformation of industry and manufacturing.

Individually, each of these three developments might appear routine. Together, they point to something larger: the elevation of data governance as a central pillar of China’s national strategy, domestically and internationally.

The forum itself provided a subtle but revealing signal. In his opening keynote, Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang explicitly referenced the Party’s three elite digital strategies—Cyber Great Power, Digital China, and Smart Society—framing them as the foundation for China’s data agenda. Notably, these references were largely omitted from PRC English-language reporting, though they appeared clearly in Chinese-language coverage. Most foreign delegates likely had little idea what Ding was signaling.

The speech directory of Kang Yi (康义), who runs both the National Bureau of Statistics and its Leading Party Members Group, also revealed something more about Party intent. Interestingly, his directory highlights in several ways that “the success of the Fourth UN World Data Forum is a specific action (具体行动) taken by the National Bureau of Statistics to study and implement the spirit of the 20th Party Congress.

This framing raises questions that are difficult to address. Xi’s political report to the 20th Party Congress mentions “data” only once and “Digital China” only in passing. The connection, therefore, is not textual but institutional: the Party’s post-Congress emphasis on governing data as a strategic resource is now being operationalized through new plans, new bureaucratic structures, and selective engagement with global forums.

Whether China’s data strategy will succeed remains uncertain. Even Chinese experts describe the task as monumental and complex. What is clear, however, is that the effort is real, comprehensive, and accelerating. Beijing is attempting to build what may be the world’s first nationally integrated system of rules, institutions, and technologies to manage data and its intelligent application, while simultaneously working to ensure that emerging global data regimes do not constrain China’s interests.

Much of this is happening quietly. And for the most part, it is happening without much notice outside China.