The proposal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the formulation of the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035, passed at the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee, emphasizes the need to "strengthen international industrial security cooperation and form industrial and supply chains with stronger innovation, higher added value, and greater security and reliability." This goal can be achieved by taking digital trade as a pioneer, focusing on knowledge-intensive and digitally intensive directions. However, in the process of developing digital trade, there are still many significant issues awaiting solutions in theoretical and regulatory practice in related fields.

First, as digital trade continues to rise, the real-world foundation of the assumptions of traditional trade theories is gradually changing, making it necessary to construct a new theoretical framework to address the new characteristics of digital trade. For example, traditional trade theories, like the theory of heterogeneous firms in trade, assume that when firms enter international markets, they face higher entry costs compared to domestic markets. However, in the context of digital trade, businesses can rapidly complete trade activities that were previously difficult or impossible to achieve by utilizing the internet and digital technologies. As a result, more and more small and medium-sized enterprises are participating in international trade and profiting from it. In the context of digital trade, the assumption that firms' fixed costs of entering international markets are significantly higher than domestic trade costs is unlikely to hold, as the fixed costs needed for businesses to enter international markets are decreasing and approaching domestic trade costs.

Second, the digital economy presents new challenges to the existing trade regulatory framework. In traditional trade, customs departments, commerce ministries, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and international organizations play key roles in trade regulation. Domestic trade systems and international trade agreements are the primary legal standards that regulate trade behavior. However, the regulatory framework for digital trade extends beyond the aforementioned regulatory bodies and legal standards. It emphasizes the regulation of critical elements of digital trade, particularly data. Therefore, incorporating digital content into the traditional trade regulatory framework is a major research theme under this area of study for RIDE.