TL;DR
China released draft amendments to its e-commerce law that would expand platform regulation domestically while adding legal “countermeasures” to protect companies like Temu and Shein facing tariffs and fines abroad. The 20 provisions are open for public consultation until August 4.
China released draft amendments to its e-commerce law on Saturday, proposing 20 provisions that would expand the law’s reach beyond platforms and merchants to cover a wider range of participants in the digital economy. The proposal, jointly issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation and the Ministry of Commerce, is open for public consultation until 4 August.
The timing is not accidental. China’s e-commerce giants are simultaneously facing the tightest domestic regulatory scrutiny in years and an increasingly hostile reception in their largest export markets.
What the amendments would change
The original e-commerce law, which took effect in January 2019, focused primarily on platform operators and the merchants selling through them. The draft amendments would extend regulatory oversight to all participants in what Beijing now calls the “platform economy,” a sprawling category that now includes AI-powered shopping agents, logistics providers, payment processors, and the data infrastructure connecting them.
The amendments would also add new regulatory tools beyond the current options of fixed fines and business suspension orders. The draft calls for “routine oversight” mechanisms and greater coordination between government departments, including consistent enforcement across online and offline operations.
The domestic context
The draft is a product of China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, which covers 2026 to 2030 and specifically calls for stronger oversight of platform companies’ data, algorithms, traffic rules, and operating practices. In April, SAMR fined Alibaba, JD.com, PDD Holdings, Meituan, and ByteDance’s Douyin a combined 3.6 billion yuan ($528 million) for failing to block unqualified food delivery merchants.
Beijing has also summoned a dozen internet companies over aggressive price competition as part of its “anti-involution” campaign, a term the government uses for self-destructive price wars that erode profits without producing innovation. The e-commerce law amendments would give regulators a formal legal basis for interventions they are already making informally.
The overseas shield
The most novel provisions concern international cooperation and what the draft calls “countermeasures” to protect the “lawful rights and interests” of Chinese enterprises operating abroad. The language is deliberately broad, but the targets are specific.
The EU fined Temu €200 million under the Digital Services Act for selling unsafe products to European consumers. On 1 July, the EU abolished the €150 de minimis exemption that had allowed Temu, Shein, and AliExpress to ship low-value goods duty-free into Europe.
In the United States, the damage has been more severe. The Trump administration ended the $800 de minimis exemption for Chinese imports in May 2025, imposing a 54% tariff or $100 flat fee on packages that previously entered duty-free.
Temu has reportedly lost more than half of its daily US users since the policy took effect.
The draft amendments would formalise what earlier regulations hinted at. China has been building data governance frameworks designed to be exported alongside its digital infrastructure, and in March a revised Foreign Trade Law took effect with expanded provisions for trade countermeasures and national security.
Platform economy, two directions
The amendments attempt to do two things at once. Domestically, they bring more of the platform economy under formal regulation, closing gaps that allowed companies to operate in grey areas between existing laws.
Internationally, they signal that Beijing will use legal tools to support its platforms’ overseas expansion, even as those platforms face mounting regulatory action in Europe and trade barriers in the United States. The draft’s provisions on “compatibility” between Chinese and international e-commerce standards suggest Beijing wants its rules to shape global norms, not merely comply with them.
Whether a law designed to tighten control at home can simultaneously serve as a shield abroad is the central tension the draft does not resolve. The public consultation period runs for 30 days, and the final version could look quite different from what was published on Saturday.
