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and Chinese legal texts, customs and government publications, news reporting on
concrete policy moves, and peer-reviewed studies used to contextualize business and
consumer responses. Time-sensitive claims are explicitly dated and, where official parcel
statistics are unavailable, the study relies on clearly identified proxy indicators such as
throughput, logistics capacity, or border-gate modernization plans.
3. Vietnam - China CBEC in the digital economy: policy asymmetry and corridor
dynamics
3.1. Context briefing (as of March 2026)
Vietnam’s retail e-commerce market was officially reported at about US$25 billion
in 2024, while the Google–Temasek–Bain country overview projected US$22 billion in e-
commerce GMV for the same year (Google, Temasek, & Bain & Company, 2024;
Government News, 2025). Vietnam tightened the CBEC policy environment in two
especially important ways: it required foreign platforms such as Temu and Shein to
register locally in late 2024, and it abolished the tax exemption for low-value imported
goods from 18 February 2025 (Reuters, 2024a, 2025). Decree No. 117/2025/ND-CP then
created a more explicit withholding-tax and transaction-data framework for platform-
based business by households and individuals (Government of Vietnam, 2025).
On the Chinese side, the State Council Information Office reported that China’s
CBEC imports and exports reached CNY 2.38 trillion in 2023, including CNY 1.83 trillion in
exports (State Council Information Office, 2024). These figures do not by themselves
determine bilateral outcomes, but they illustrate the scale gap and the speed with which
the policy environment has been changing.
3.2. Four-dimensional comparison of Vietnam and China
Strategic objectives. Vietnam treats e-commerce as a pillar of digital transformation,
retail modernization, and SME participation. The emphasis is domestic market
development, formalization, and the gradual extension of e-commerce into cross-border
trade under a national digital economy strategy (Prime Minister, 2020, 2022). China, in
contrast, treats CBEC not only as a market channel but also as export infrastructure. Its
policy logic is more outward-oriented: pilot zones, bonded models, customs coding, and
digital logistics are meant to support export diversification, regional market penetration,
and the international projection of Chinese platform capabilities.
Policy instruments. Vietnam’s framework still rests largely on a combination of
decrees and adjacent laws: Decree No. 52/2013/ND-CP, Decree No. 85/2021/ND-CP, the
2023 Law on Electronic Transactions, the 2023 Law on Protection of Consumers’ Rights,
Decree No. 55/2024/ND-CP, and Decree No. 117/2025/ND-CP (Government of Vietnam,
2013, 2021, 2024, 2025; National Assembly, 2023a, 2023b). The system has become more
coherent, but it remains partly modular rather than codified in a dedicated e-commerce
law. China’s instruments are more integrated: the E-Commerce Law, the Data Security
Law, the Personal Information Protection Law, customs supervision codes such as 9610,
1210, 9710, and 9810, and a long-running pilot-zone architecture that links customs, tax
facilitation, bonded warehousing, and local experimentation (General Administration of
Customs of the People’s Republic of China [GACC], 2014, 2019, 2020; Standing Committee
of the National People’s Congress, 2018, 2021a, 2021b).
Regulatory depth. Vietnam is moving from a registration-based regime toward a
more data-oriented model, but interoperability is still incomplete. COD dependence,
fragmented logistics, and uneven SME digitalization limit the state’s capacity to reconcile
order, payment, and delivery information in near real time. China’s model is deeper

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