When Competition Law Meets Telecom Regulation: The Chinese Context

Abstract

The liberalized telecom sector is intertwined with market force, sector-specific regulation and competition rules. While the conflict between market force and sector-specific regulation has been well studied, the conflict between sector-specific regulation and competition rules has attracted less attention in particular in China. The recent Chinese Telecom/China Unicom case, though not a successful antitrust intervention, suggests that the conflict between the two instruments has become tangible. This leads to a question whether it is better to let the two compete or complement. After carrying out a comparative study on the dramatically opposite practices of the EU and the US, this article chooses the US means and nevertheless follows the EU ends. Based on an evaluation whether antitrust intervention can bring added value to effective competition in the Chinese telecom sector, it proposes to establish the supremacy of competition rules and to allow competition rules to intervene into regulated matters.

Keywords: Competition Law, Sector-specific Regulation, Conflict, Telecommunication, China