Within a remarkably short period of time, China has enacted a third data protection law, the “Personal Information Protection Law,” which came into force on November 1, 2021. With the previously enacted “Cybersecurity Law” and “Data Security Law,” Chinese data protection law offers numerous regulations that also need to be complied with by European addressees given their wide scope of application with, in part, extraterritorial claims. If data is to be collected and partially processed in China as part of an international and interdisciplinary research project, all applicable European and Chinese regulations have to be observed. This contribution compares the regulations and draws conclusions about similarities and differences in legislation across countries in order to ensure data collection and processing in conformity with data protection. It can be seen that the General Data Protection Regulation and Personal Information Protection Law are similar in many respects, particularly with regard to the regulatory system and content of the regulations. Nonetheless, while the primary focus of the General Data Protection Regulation is on the protection of individuals and fundamental rights, the Personal Information Protection Law also formulates governmental goals that, in direct comparison, may seem surprising and, in some circumstances, give cause for concern in terms of legal policy. We show that data collection and processing in an international research project is possible and feasible and provides suggestions for best practices