From Information Rights to Data Wrongs: China’s Data Governance Paradigms and Their Implications for Administrative Law
Two models for regulating the state’s management of information are in tension amid China’s ongoing digitization of its governance: an “information rights” paradigm that emerged in the early 2000s to empower citizens by overcoming information asymmetry through administrative law, and a “data wrongs” paradigm that took shape in the late 2010s to prioritize data as a tool for enhancing state capacity by identifying and rectifying perceived wrongs. This tension and dynamic, with its spill-over effects for the role of Chinese administrative law, is subtly reflected in recent norm-making—such as the 2025 Government Data Sharing Regulations and amended Judicial Interpretations of the Open Government Information Regulations—and illustrated through initiatives like the Social Credit and health code systems. In these arenas, the autonomy-supportive functions of administrative law are not nullified but are instead “moderated” to accommodate imperatives of granular social control. Assessing what this tension means for Chinese administrative law requires a new analytical framework that transcends a narrow, technical “data governance” discourse to situate the role of datafication within China’s changing socio-political landscape.
Lunch will be provided.
About the Speaker
Dr. Clement Yongxi Chen is a Lecturer at the ANU School of Law of the Australian National University. His research interests span two areas: public law and law & technology. His publications have appeared in international journals such as Law & Social Inquiry, European Data Protection Law Review, and Artificial Intelligence and Law, focusing on greater China and from a comparative perspective. He was awarded a Hong Kong General Research Fund Grant to investigate the new norms and normativity emerging from China’s Social Credit System. At ANU, he teaches postgraduate courses in AI, Law & Society, and Freedom of Information & Privacy, in addition to convening Australian Public Law. He was awarded the Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning by the ANU College of Law.
Prior to joining ANU, Clement was a Research Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong. He received legal training at Sun Yat-sen University, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, and the University of Hong Kong. His thesis on judicial protection of the right to information was awarded the Intersentia Prize for the Best PhD Thesis in Law. He has advised on the drafting of Chinese local legislation concerning information rights.
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