The Role Of Government In Antitrust From Analyzing The Backgrounds Of American And Chinese Antitrust Law

Since the1980s, the Chinese market-oriented economy has developed rapidly and the market competition mechanism has been gradually established and perfected. Along with the growing market competition, there has been economic monopoly in Chinese domestic market; with the economic globalization and opening up, a large number of multinational companies and foreign enterprises come into China and have got monopolistic positions with their competitive advantages in the Chinese market; the forming mechanism and the performance of monopoly has changed in network economy, which makes new type of monopoly emerge; at periods of economic transition the administrative monopoly obstructs the market competition more and more obviously. In the face of the new economic situations, the government will need to play an important part in antitrust in order to safeguard the market competition. Regulation and antitrust legislation are the two main ways for the government to regulate monopoly. But because of information asymmetry, regulatory capture and other reasons, the government’s regulation of monopolized industries sometimes not only won’t make up for "market failure", but also can lead to "government failure". Because of the government regulation’s low efficiency, more and more countries, especially the market economic countries, on the one hand, gradually relaxes government regulation and actively strips the competition links of the natural monopolized industries; On the other hand, they are seeking through the antitrust legislation to regulate monopoly. Antitrust law is gradually becoming the main measure of regulating monopoly for the government in different countries in order to maintain the market competition mechanism. In1890the United States issued the Sherman act, which is the first antitrust law with modern sense in the world. The Sherman act provides a good reference to other countries’antitrust legislation. And the Chinese antitrust is just issued, so Chinese government lacks experiences of implementing antitrust. Therefore, researching the role of government in antitrust from the backgrounds of American and Chinese antitrust legislation has great theoretical and practical significance for Chinese government to regulate monopoly. This article attempts to analysis the role and goal orientation of government in antitrust by comparing the backgrounds of antitrust legislation, the formation and nature of monopoly, interest groups’ legislation game in China and America, from the point of view of the antitrust legislation. In social and economic backgrounds of antitrust legislation, China and America have similar economic development degree and industrial structure; but in comparison with America, China’s economic dependence on foreign trade is higher, and China’s economic internationalization degree is higher, too. China’s antitrust legislation is more influenced by the international Macro Economic Environment; China’s market entities are of diversity, including the state-owned enterprises, multinational companies and private enterprises, etc; compared with American government, the Chinese government plays a more important role in the process of establishing market economy system, which is led by the government; Chinese antitrust legislation is still faced with new challenges of the economic globalization and the network economy. In the formation and nature of monopoly, China’s administrative monopoly is more serious than economic monopoly in comparison with America and should be the key regulated object of anti-trust law; the economic monopoly has already formed in China, which includes traditional monopoly, multinational monopoly and new type of monopoly under network economy. In the legislation game between interest groups, in comparison with America, the economic interest groups in China develop unbalancedly, the expressing channel of vulnerable groups’interests is not free of traffic, the consumers and the public play a smaller role in process of antitrust legislation; The Chinese government plays the dual role of "the referee" and "player" in antitrust legislation. Unbalanced development of interest groups, blocked channel for interest expression and the government’s dual role may make the governments’ goal orientation become of alienation in antitrust legislation and enforcement. But in the new social and economic environment, the Chinese government should actively respond to the challenges of the economic globalization and the network economy in the process of antitrust legislation and enforcement, and should positive transform government functions and redefine its role by constantly improving the content and implementing of antitrust law, pushing on through political and economic structural reforms.