Competition Enforcement in Digital Markets in China

Abstract

Compared with the size of China’s digital market, competition enforcement in China in this area is relatively underexplored. It had been almost an entirely blank space until the end of 2020. This article summarizes the enforcement actions that have been taken to date, from few distant cases in which former authorities tentatively approached competition issues in this area, to more recent landmark cases in which more sophisticated analysis is provided and hefty fines are imposed. This article traces the enforcement history, thereby explaining the reasons of some China-featured situations, for example, a large amount of existing gun-jumping cases. It also studies some comparable enforcement decisions with a common issue, for example, dominance abuse in the digital market and a controversial topic in China—“choose one from two.” Enforcement trends are also discussed to predict future development in this regard.