American tech firms keep complaining that Chinese regulators threaten to shut them out. According to the American Chamber of Commerce in China, there are a lot of investigations going on scrutinizing at least 30 foreign companies under the local 2008 anti-monopoly law.

The Chamber confirmed that multinational companies remain under “selective and subjective enforcement” using both legal and extra-legal approaches. The findings of the survey of 164 members demonstrated that almost 50% of respondents felt that foreign companies were being singled out in recent pricing and anti-corruption campaigns. The survey conducted last year and involving 365 members showed 40%. In the meantime, ¼ of the respondents were uncertain, or did not know, and the same number of people said no.

According to Lester Ross, vice chairman of the Chamber’s policy committee, the expansion of the enforcement was welcome in principle, but the problem is that regulators are using “extra-legal” means to carry out their investigations. He believes that the regulators have taken “vague or unspecified” provisions in the legislation and moved to enforce them without respect to the notion of due process.

As a result, the Chamber of Commerce had to write to Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew to ask them to negotiate with Beijing its use of anti-competition rules.

On the other hand, China explains that it uses competition legislation to advance industrial policies protecting domestic companies. But the way the country enforces the legislation is worrisome, and not only for the US: the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China also expressed its concern last month over the antitrust investigations. At the time, the EU Chamber said that China was using strong-arm tactics and appeared to be unfairly targeting foreign companies.

In response, China claims that some business operators in the country failed to adjust their practices in accordance with the Chinese anti-monopoly legislation. Some of them perfectly understand their failure but believe they may escape punishment. You can find Qualcomm and Microsoft among the victims of the Chinese investigations. The local subsidiary of Qualcomm was suspected of overcharging and abusing its market position in wireless communication standards, while Microsoft has only 20 days to reply to queries on the compatibility of its Windows OS and Office software suite.

Very nice post @Blitz

These thing is gonna be bigger and bigger in the future. With China in the way to become the next superpower this kind of conflicts are only in the beginning. It is difficult to go on one side because there are a lot of politics in the middle.