AI, Power and Morality: The Global Struggle Over Data

A recent Economist article (July 2025) describes how China is building a “national data ocean,” merging consumer behavior, industrial processes, and state activity into a unified system. This vast concentration of data fuels China’s AI strategy. The country is conducting an unprecedented experiment in which data is not merely a resource, but instead becomes a strategic weapon in the race for global AI dominance.

President Xi Jinping has declared data a “fundamental resource,” alongside labor, capital, and land. Government agencies at all levels are encouraged to manage their data assets, record their value on balance sheets, and even trade them on state-run exchanges. Xi’s vision—treating data as an economic asset and mandating inter-agency data sharing—stands in stark contrast to the European approach, and also Wester accountancy standards like GAAP and IFRS that do not allow data to be listed as an asset on the balance sheet. In China, data serves as an instrument of economic direction and state control; in Europe, it is rooted in privacy, transparency, and individual rights. The US sits somewhere in between those extremes.

The American Factor

The United States takes a more market-driven approach, where policy remains largely decentralized innovation led. Data is viewed as corporate property, granting technology companies broad freedom to collect and commercialize information. While certain states—most notably California through the CCPA—have introduced stricter privacy frameworks, a comprehensive federal regulation remains absent.

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Geopolitical tension has further intensified under Trump. His trade policies and economic pressure have pushed Europe to strengthen its own digital sovereignty. The recent US-EU Trade Pact has not directly altered the AI Act but has reinforced the strategic imperative for Europe to chart their own, independent course. For businesses, compliance with European regulation—anchored in transparency and ethics—is becoming a competitive advantage rather than a constraint.

Meanwhile, Trump urges Europe to:

• Roll out the AI Act faster and more consistently;
• Support European firms in compliance readiness;
• And engage in transatlantic talks on regulatory interoperability.

Aspect	🇨🇳 China	🇪🇺 European Union (AI Act)	🇺🇸 United States
View on Data	Strategic production factor	Protected right & driver of innovation	Economic asset & competitive advantage
Data Governance Model	Centralized and state-controlled	Decentralized, with checks & balances	Market-driven, largely private
AI Approach	Top-down, focused on speed & scale	Risk-based, focused on trust & safety	Innovation-oriented, minimal federal regulation
Privacy Protection	Limited — subordinate to state control	Strong (GDPR & AI Act)	Fragmented (state-level laws like CCPA)
Digital ID	Integrated into state infrastructure	Used for authentication — with safeguards	Decentralized — platform or sector-specific
Access to Data for AI	Broad — includes industrial and government data	Restricted to legitimate purposes, under strict oversight	Broad — via commercial contracts and platforms
Algorithm Oversight	State control & “black box” risks	Transparency, explainability & human oversight required	Self-regulation & voluntary guidelines (AI Bill of Rights)
Economic Model	Valuation & tradability of data	Innovation within ethical & legal frameworks	Free market & technological competition

Conclusion

China’s centralization of both public and private data—valued as a tangible asset, monetized, and traded—directly opposes Europe’s principle of data sovereignty. While the European Union builds its digital economy on trust, ethics, and the protection of fundamental rights, China wields data as a tool of political and economic control. What China defines as efficiency and value creation would, in Europe, be considered a violation of privacy and market neutrality. Meanwhile, the United States under Trump favors deregulation and market primacy, whereas the EU doubles down on governance and citizen protection. These three models reflect the deeper ideological divide in the global competition for technological power and moral authority in the age of AI.