China's increasing focus on antimonopoly investigations is arousing concern among foreign businesses. Premier Li Keqiang said on Tuesday that recent probes had not targeted particular firms or industries, and that foreign firms accounted for only 10 percent of those investigated. The firms involved have been fined 3 billion yuan.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRF) has fined scores of firms for abuse of monopoly. For instance Faw-Volkswagen and Audi's dealerships were fined almost 25 million yuan on Sep. 11 for applying price monopolies.Since 2013, China has conducted investigations involving LED panels, milk power, gold, etc.

In 2014 the investigations were extended to communications, cars and information technology. Microsoft, Qualcomm and BMW have all been subjected to investigations. 335 firms in various fields were involved as of September 2014. According to Xu Kunlin, an official from NDRF, the targets of the probe include state-owned companies, private companies and foreign owned companies; the investigated cases involve monopoly agreements, abuse of dominant market positions, and abuse of administrative power to exclude competition.

Equal treatment for Chinese and foreign firms.

Some foreign media have accused China of targeting foreign enterprises. Li noted that the probes are in accordance with the law, transparent, and fair. More foreign firms will be more willing to enter the Chinese market if the competitive environment is sound.

“Accusations of bias do not hold water,” said Xu. “Recent anti-trust probes have not targeted specific firms or industries, and the object of China’s anti-monopoly law is to secure fair competition.”Sanctions imposed on foreign firms are huge mainly because the revenues of these firms are huge, said Wei Shilin, a professional lawyer. A penalty based on even 1% of turnover is very high.

Strict enforcement of anti-monopoly laws will become the norm.

“The enforcement of anti-monopoly laws in China is improving, and playing a larger role in protecting the rights of customers,” said Ren Baiming, an official from China’s minister of commerce. China is doing its best to create a fair and competitive business climate.

This article was edited and translated from 《中国反垄断不存在选择性执法》, source: People's Daily Overseas Edition, Author: Zhou Xiaoyuan