China on Tuesday said it would probe US tech giant Google over violations of anti-monopoly laws after Washington slapped 10 percent levies on Chinese goods.
Beijing’s State Administration for Market Regulation said the US tech giant was “suspected of violating the Anti-Monopoly Law of the People’s Republic of China”.
It has “launched an investigation into Google in accordance with the law” as a result, the administration said in a statement.
It did not provide further details about the allegations against Google.
The US tech behemoth’s core search engine and many of its services are blocked in mainland China, where US internet titans have long struggled with doing business due to the “Great Firewall” that blocks politically sensitive content.
Google in 2011 abandoned its Chinese-language search engine in the mainland and transferred it to Hong Kong.
By 2014, China blocked the last remaining way to access Google’s email service Gmail.
Beijing also said Tuesday it would add US fashion group PVH Corp. — which owns Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein — and biotech giant Illumina to a list of “unreliable entities”.
The move would “safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, in accordance with relevant laws”, China’s commerce ministry said in a statement.
“The above two entities violate normal market transaction principles, interrupt normal transactions with Chinese enterprises, and take discriminatory measures against Chinese enterprises,” it added.
Source : https://www.ibtimes.com/china-says-probe-google-over-anti-monopoly-violations-3762235
