A few days ago, the launch and special counseling meeting of the ‘Commercial Law Escort Cross-border E-commerce Service Plan’ sponsored by relevant institutions was held in Guangzhou.
The plan focuses on empowering the industry from three aspects: first, to efficiently aggregate resources and create synergistic advantages in commercial law services; second, to adhere to demand orientation and strive to solve the pain points and difficulties of enterprises; third, to build a commercial law service empowerment system based on industry development.
A professor at the International Business School of Dalian University for Nationalities said that this event is intended to directly address the pain points of “difficulty in compliance and dispute resolution” of enterprises, and to establish a normalized legal service mechanism by gathering government, enterprise, academic and research resources.
Its far-reaching significance lies in the fact that cross-border e-commerce is transforming from policy-driven to rule-driven, continuously improving the voice and competitiveness of enterprises in global digital trade.
In recent years, my country’s cross-border e-commerce has continued to grow rapidly.
According to preliminary statistics from the customs, my country’s cross-border e-commerce imports and exports in 2025 will be 2.75 trillion yuan, an increase of 69.7% over 2020.
Data for the first quarter of 2026 show that my country’s cross-border e-commerce imports and exports were 618.46 billion yuan, of which exports were 473.55 billion yuan and imports were 144.91 billion yuan.
Professor Huang Zhen, director of the Institute of Financial Law of the Central University of Finance and Economics, pointed out that there are obvious differences between cross-border e-commerce and traditional foreign trade.
Cross-border e-commerce is a new type of trade with platform + data + full link + multi-subject. Legal risks penetrate all areas, change dynamically, and impose immediate penalties.
General foreign trade is a traditional trade of ‘offline + contract + cargo rights’, and the risks are relatively concentrated, clear and predictable.
The biggest challenge currently faced by cross-border e-commerce is the triple superposition of ‘fragmentation + global compliance + instant punishment’ of global rules, and the extreme contradiction between compliance costs and survival pressure.
Currently, cross-border e-commerce is in an intensified period of clarifying compliance boundaries, and the overall level is still in the initial stage of compliance management. Head platforms are proactively compliant, low-end platforms are passively compliant, and small and medium-sized platforms are taking chances.
The legal awareness and compliance capabilities of cross-border e-commerce still clearly lag behind the development speed of the industry, and the gap is still widening. It is the biggest structural risk in the current industry.
Huang Zhen further stated that if the practical dilemma of small and micro entities that cannot understand the rules, cannot afford the costs, and cannot prevent risks cannot be solved in the long term, it will be difficult for cross-border e-commerce to get rid of the extensive development model and achieve a high-quality transformation from “scaling overseas” to “compliance overseas and brand overseas”.
To solve this problem, it is not only necessary for cross-border e-commerce platforms and enterprises to gradually establish a bottom-line compliance mindset, but also for the government, industry associations, and platforms to jointly provide a lightweight, low-cost, and inclusive small and micro compliance support system. Only in this way can the structural contradictions in the cross-border e-commerce industry be alleviated from the root cause and the long-term development potential of the industry be released.
In March 2025, the “Regulations of the State Council on the Handling of Foreign-Related Intellectual Property Disputes” was released. This is my country’s first comprehensive administrative regulation specifically targeting the handling of foreign-related intellectual property disputes, providing a clear legal path for companies to safeguard their rights and interests in a complex international environment.
Huang Zhen analyzed that the issuance of the regulations and the construction of the rights protection guidance network are milestones in the protection of foreign-related intellectual property rights in my country, marking the strategic transformation from ‘passive response’ to ‘active escort’, providing national-level legal backing and low-cost compliance support for cross-border e-commerce, and directly alleviating the industry’s structural compliance dilemma.
In the next step, my country still needs to continue to make efforts in terms of coverage breadth, service depth, reach accuracy, and coordination, so that compliance support truly becomes the “standard configuration” for small and micro enterprises going overseas, and promote my country’s cross-border e-commerce from “scale dividend” to “compliance dividend, brand dividend”.
Relevant experts said that the key variables in the next stage of cross-border e-commerce competition are compliance capabilities and dispute resolution efficiency.
As the industry moves from rapid growth to a stage of quality improvement and upgrading, cross-border e-commerce is transforming from ‘scale expansion’ to ‘high-quality development’. Enterprises that can establish and improve compliance systems and make good use of legal and business services to resolve risks will occupy a more favorable position in global market competition.
