The Financial Times reported that China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) recently published draft rules to prevent “monopoly behavior” on Internet platforms such as Alibaba, Tencent, and Meituan.

Some observers are quick to point out that this move may be connected to China’s recent crackdown on Ant Group, teaching everyone, including Jack Ma, the wealthiest person in China and founder of both Alibaba and Ant, a lesson about who is in charge.

Others argue that such a move is imperative in its own right. These massive tech companies have repeatedly been caught engaging in various anti-competitive practices in recent years. Therefore, they say, the SAMR is merely making things better for the consumers and small businesses that rely on these platforms.

China’s approach toward anti-competitive behavior is an interesting case study. The PRC adopted the Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) in 2007 and has, for more than a decade, been refining its competition rules to catch up with Western developed economies, especially the United States. With the newly published rules, they have even leapfrogged to complex competition issues related to multisided platforms and business models that are built on network effects, the very same constructs with which the FTC and the DOJ are currently dealing.

That said, the objectives of the AML may still differ, sometimes substantially, from the established antitrust principles in the West. For instance, in addition to “safeguarding consumers’ interests” and “protecting fair market competition,” Article 1 of the AML has a “safeguarding the public interest” provision that may well include national/state security issues—issues that are increasingly pertinent given the series of events since the U.S.-China trade and tech war began to pick up momentum in 2018.

Now, consider the second narrative re China’s anti-monopoly rules against tech giants. The same can be said about state-owned enterprises (SOEs), if not in a more severe sense. Yet, China’s anti-monopoly enforcement rarely, if ever, touches them. If consumer welfare and business competition really are the top priorities for the CCP leadership, wouldn’t it make more sense to target SOEs first? Unsurprisingly, Article 7 of the AML explicitly exempts certain conduct of SOEs (e.g., the “exclusiveness in operation and sales”) from being scrutinized in the context of promoting market competition.