Enforcement of the AML in China’s Digital Economy – From the Perspective of the Overall Regulatory Environment

By Wei Han & Yajie Gao

In order to comprehensively understand how the competition rules are applied to the Chinese digital economy, it is essential to understand China’s overall regulatory environment. Aside from relevant official government documents, this paper discusses the relationship between the AML and other laws as well as the connections between different administrative bodies and the courts. This paper also puts forward proposals for promoting the application of the AML to the digital economy.

By Wei Han & Yajie Gao¹

I. BACKGROUND

The digital economy has become the key driver of global economic growth. In 2018, the volume of China’s digital economy reached CNY 31.3 trillion, accounting for 34.8 percent of GDP.² As of June 2019, there are as many as 854 million Chinese netizens (61.2 percent of China’s population) and 847 million mobile netizens. 99.1 percent of Chinese netizens access the internet through cellphones. More specifically, the numbers of users of instant communications, internet news, online shopping, online takeaway, online payment, online video, online car hailing and online government services were as high as 825 million, 686 million, 639 million, 421 million, 633 million, 337 million, 339 million and 509 million respectively.³

The sound development of the digital economy requires effective market functioning. Since the enactment of the Anti-Monopoly Law of the P.R.C. (“AML”) in 2007,