China’s Digital Economy and the Formation of International Rules: Importance for Cooperation Between Russia and the BRICS Countries

The article examines the model of the development of the digital economy of the People’s Republic of China in the context of the formation of international rules of digital regulation and the transformation of the global economic space in the context of its increasing fragmentation. Based on official statistics, regional digital economy development indices, as well as modern foreign and Russian scientific research, it has been shown that by the mid‑2020s, China’s digital economy had become a systemforming element of the national reproduction process, comparable in scale and economic importance to traditional sectors. Special attention is paid to the structural and spatial characteristics of digital development, including regional differentiation, industry digitalization, infrastructural expansion (communication networks and computing power), the formation of the data market and the institutionalization of data as a factor of production. The thesis is substantiated that the Chinese model of the digital economy is based on a combination of an active role of the state, a high concentration of data in platform ecosystems and a regime of controlled, procedurally driven openness of cross-border information flows. It is shown that this model forms an alternative regulatory approach to digital commerce and data management, which differs from the liberal concept of free movement of data. The article reveals the importance of the Chinese model for Russia and the BRICS countries, primarily in the context of digital cooperation, reducing transaction costs and developing compatible regulatory solutions in the face of sanctions pressure and institutional heterogeneity. It is concluded that the key area of interaction is the formation of regulatory interoperability regimes and low-risk regulatory corridors that combine the expansion of digital exchange with the preservation of digital sovereignty and national security requirements. The hypothesis of the study is that the further evolution of the Chinese digital model will be accompanied by increased regulatory exports of digital standards through bilateral and multilateral cooperation formats. The practical significance of the work lies in the possibility of using the findings in the development of national digital development strategies and mechanisms of international digital regulation in a polycentric global economy.

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