The Chinese Antitrust Paradox

Antitrust law faces a fundamental paradox between protecting competition and protecting competitors. This paradox is more structurally durable in China than in Western societies thanks to the oversized role of the Chinese state in its economy. This Article examines the changing market conditions in China following the adoption of China’s Antimonopoly Law (AML), and how these changes have led to paradoxical developments in Chinese antitrust. In a number of areas relating to enforcement authorities, transparency, courts, State-Owned Enterprises, cartels, internet platforms, and foreign companies, the tensions between protecting competition and protecting competitors have persisted or even deepened in the post-AML era.

How China will resolve its antitrust paradox will be largely determined by how China’s state-capitalism development model will evolve.