Beijing's antitrust push poses a problem for Western regulators

The Chinese government's anti-monopoly machinery presents a major challenge to U.S. and European regulators, a new book argues.

Why it matters: China's huge markets are attracting investment from multinational corporations and shaping the behavior of its own globe-trotting companies — giving international heft to the country's idiosyncratic antitrust enforcement and putting it on a collision course with Western-style regulation.

Anti-competitive practices in China's domestic markets, such as pervasive but opaque state ownership, can make Chinese companies difficult for Western institutions to regulate while enabling China's own antitrust regulator to sometimes...