The digital economy has emerged as a significant driver of China’s economic expansion. Ensuring the secure and well-regulated flow of data is considered a fundamental requirement for fostering the sustainable growth of the digital economy. A delicate equilibrium between releasing data values and safeguarding data security need be achieved. In China, the following issues have been identified with the security governance of cross-border data flows: discrepancies between subordinate and superior legal provisions, indistinct delineation of data hierarchies and classifications, minimal distinctions among various data export channels, and insufficient divergence in the institutional values governing analogous regulations. To address the aforementioned issues, it is necessary to take into account the specific conditions pertaining to data export requirements and data protection capabilities, so as to promote the modernization of security governance capacity in the field of cross-border data flows.