China’s State Administration of Market Supervision released the “Annual Report on China’s Anti-Monopoly Enforcement (2019)” on Friday (25), which begins by stating that “anti-monopoly is an important element of the basic socialist economic system”, “China China attaches great importance to anti-monopoly work” and “to break administrative monopolies and prevent market monopolies”. According to the report, a total of 103 monopoly cases were filed and investigated in 2019, with “fines and confiscations” amounting to RMB 320 million. The Chinese authorities have recently taken action against a number of Internet giants, raising concerns.
The report lists the “Typical Antitrust Enforcement Cases in 2019”, which include not only local Chinese companies, but also Chinese companies or joint ventures of internationally renowned companies, such as Toyota Motor (China) Investment Co. American Eastman (China) Investment Management Company was fined RMB 24.379 million.
As reported by various media, “anti-monopoly” is an important economic task of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The CPC Central Committee’s Economic Work Conference pointed out earlier that “we will resolutely oppose monopoly and unfair competition” and “financial innovation must be carried out under prudential supervision”.
Recently, Alibaba was investigated by the Chinese authorities for alleged monopolistic practices, and the Chinese Ministry of Transport announced that it will strengthen “anti-monopoly” in the transportation sector next year. This reflects the policy direction of the authorities. The report mentions that China’s National People’s Congress recently announced that the revision of the “anti-monopoly law” is the main revision of the law in 2021.
The People’s Daily, the official media of the Communist Party of China, published an article for two consecutive days commenting on Alibaba’s investigation and “anti-monopoly”.
On Thursday (24), the commentary said, “The authorities’ investigation of Alibaba is aimed at better regulating and developing the platform economy”; on Friday (25), the commentary said, “Anti-monopoly regulation is not contradictory to strengthening and expanding the platform economy, and it will not kill the innovative genes of the Internet industry, but rather is a strong protection for the platform economy. Instead, it is a strong protection for the environment of economic development.”
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