James Kynge

No, I think that's such a good point.

I think this opens a Pandora's box for virtually any Chinese tech company that's collecting data in foreign markets.

This sets a template or at least an example of what might be done, what should be done, what could be done in order to increase data security that these Chinese companies are collecting either in the US market or the UK or European market or anywhere else in the world.

And I think it's so right of you, Alice, to point to what Western companies had to do in China.

And for me, the main example was the way Apple in 2018 had to transfer its mainland Chinese iCloud user data

to a joint venture called Guizhou Cloud Big Data that's situated in the southwestern province of Guizhou.

And at the time, I think, we all wondered why that was happening, why that had to happen.

And it was purely because the Chinese state wanted to be sure that Chinese people's user data was not going to be used by Apple and taken abroad.

It wanted control over the user data.

And it seems to me that if you're a Chinese car company working in Europe, let's say BYD, you're collecting data.

If you're a Chinese internet company like Sheen or the other ones, even Alibaba and AliExpress, you're collecting data.

So many Chinese companies are collecting data around the world.

Surely there has to be now some thinking that goes into the security of the data that they collected and whether or not they need to set up joint ventures to allow authorities to ensure that, let's say, European data stays in Europe.

It doesn't go back to China and vice versa for the U.S.

So I think this is a big moment in the treatment of the data that Chinese companies are collecting abroad.

Now, paradoxically, this may be seen as a barrier to entry by Chinese companies into Western markets.

But maybe it's one of those things that once it's overcome, actually smooths the entry of those companies into the European US or other markets around the world.

So it's a big topic.

I think this will run and run for the next few years.

My prediction this week is in more of a general vein.