The digital revolution is profoundly reshaping contemporary social structures. Algorithmic systems now extend into nearly every sphere of human activity. Cross-border data flows are continually testing the jurisdictional limits of national sovereignty, while the exponentially rising energy demands of computing infrastructure have fueled global anxiety over carbon emissions. Though seemingly unrelated, these developments collectively point to a fundamental question: Can a modern governance framework rooted in industrial civilization adequately meet the demands of the digital age? Answering that question requires a theoretical vision that moves beyond industrial civilization’s “logic of conquest.” To this end, this article proposes a normative framework, provisionally termed “symbiotic justice,” grounded in an ontology of collaborative co-creation, measured by the health of relationships, and governed by contribution-based justice.

Logic of conquest

Modern governance evolved around a logic grounded epistemologically in the division between subject and object and institutionally in exclusive property rights. This may be called the logic of conquest. This logic made major historical contributions: During the era of industrial civilization, it powerfully advanced productive forces and individual emancipation, while the concepts of absolute ownership and clearly demarcated sovereign boundaries helped safeguard modern liberty and social order. Yet this governance framework—centered on absolute ownership, enforced through exclusive remedies, and shaped by anthropocentric values—is encountering systemic failure on three fronts in the digital age.

Ecologically, the seemingly “dematerialized” digital economy conceals vast consumption of energy and resources. In the social sphere, systems designed to protect exclusive property rights produce complex and often contradictory effects in digital settings. In global governance, the Westphalian paradigm—with sovereign states as its basic units and exclusive property rights as a core principle—struggles to accommodate the non-rivalrous and supranational nature of data.

Toward collaborative co-creation

Unlike traditional material factors of production, data is fundamentally non-rivalrous. Its use does not deplete it; on the contrary, sharing can generate spillover effects, while diverse applications can create entirely new value. This material property unsettles the basic institutional assumptions inherited from industrial civilization: Resources are scarce, actors necessarily compete, and rights must be exclusive. It is from this understanding that symbiotic justice derives its theoretical force, offering an anchor for a broader shift in the logic of governance in the digital age.

From the perspective of political philosophy, symbiotic justice critically engages with existing traditions of normative theory while also moving beyond them. Whereas John Rawls’ theory of justice seeks formal equality from an original position, symbiotic justice directly confronts the asymmetries in actual capabilities and contributions among actors in digital environments. Whereas Jürgen Habermas’s theory of communicative rationality emphasizes procedural conditions, symbiotic justice gives greater weight to reciprocity in substantive contribution and to the structural health of relational networks.

The concept also resonates deeply with traditional Chinese ideas such as “harmony in diversity” and “unity between Heaven and humanity,” bringing a relational mode of thought into modern governance. Symbiotic justice is therefore not simply a choice among existing theoretical options. It is a reconstruction of normative theory in response to a fundamental variable of the digital age—the non-rivalrous nature of data.

Within this framework, the foundations of social order must themselves be systematically rethought. Governance should no longer be understood as the domination of an object by a subject, but as a process of collaborative co-creation among multiple subjects. This shift carries two principal implications.

The first is a move from absolute rights to relational rights. Rights should no longer be understood solely as freedom from outside interference; they should also entail responsibility for maintaining the health of the relational networks in which those rights operate. Anyone who enjoys rights over data must therefore assume an obligation to prevent negative network externalities. Judging an institutional arrangement by the standard of relational health means looking beyond the immediate question of who benefits and asking instead whether the arrangement strengthens or weakens the structure of the wider relational network.

The framework for protecting personal information established by China’s Personal Information Protection Law already contains certain elements of relational rights. Likewise, the data altruism mechanism introduced by the European Union’s Data Governance Act represents a further extension of this logic.

The second implication is a shift from formal equality to substantive justice based on contribution—the central proposition of “contribution-based justice.” Institutions should move beyond the traditional ownership principle that “those who own receive the benefits” and establish a fairer mechanism in which “those who contribute receive the benefits.” Such a mechanism would correct the separation of contribution from reward under the logic of capital, while also overcoming the limitations of formal justice that can obscure substantive inequality.

China’s ongoing structural reform of data property rights, which separates the rights to hold, use, and operate data, embodies this contribution-oriented logic in legislative practice. Its aim is to ensure that original data providers, algorithm optimizers, and platform operators throughout the data production chain each receive an equitable share commensurate with their respective contributions.

Chen Ying is an associate professor from the School of Artificial Intelligence and Law at Southwest University of Political Science and Law.