Today’s digital economy has gradually emerged as a new engine of innovation for China’s economic growth. However, while injecting new vitality into the Chinese economy, digital globalization has also brought a series of challenges to China, such as data security, digital divide, unregulated competition among digital platforms, and a lack of mechanisms for protecting property rights. These issues underscore China's insufficient capacity for effectively regulating and systematically governing the digital economy. In contrast, South Korean government has implemented the ‘Korea Digital Strategy’ (KDS) and the ‘Basic Law for Promoting the Revitalization and Utilization of Data’ (Data Industry Act) to foster the development of the digital economy industry. These measures effectively solve the problems of digital industry development and governance, and thus improve the legal system of South Korea’s digital economy. Therefore, this study compares the construction of digital economy legal system in China and South Korea through comparative analysis, summarizes the experience of digital economy legal system construction in South Korea, and offers three insights for the development of China’s digital economy legal system. Firstly, China needs to improve the coordination of its laws for the digital economy, avoid repetitive and overlapping legislation, and enhance the scientificity and authority of legislation; Secondly, China needs to adopt a systematic and comprehensive approach to legislating and governing the digital economy, ensuring the consistency and coherence of the system; Thirdly, China needs to conduct more basic research, pay attention to the ethical and legal implications, and keep the legal system up to date, so as to ensure the effectiveness of the law.