ABSTRACT
The law requires the establishment of an Anti-Monopoly Commission under the State Council, whose functions include competition policy making, issuance of investigative reports and assessments on market competition, issuance of antitrust guidelines, and coordination of the enforcement of the Anti-Monopoly Law (AML). The AML clearly contemplates reliance on the administrative, rather than judicial, system as its primary enforcement mechanism. The AML is another example of China's efforts to guide economic behavior by reliance on well-defined rules of law. The most significant competition policy issues in China are inextricably tied to the fundamental issues arising from China's historic transformation from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. As China's economy is being transformed from centrally planned to market-oriented, China's legal system is undergoing parallel changes. Despite the significant progress China had made in other aspects of its economic reforms, by the early 1990s State-Owned Enterprises still accounted for an overwhelming percentage of China's economy.
