Beyond Legal Transplant: China’s ‘Shopping Around’ Approach and Formation of Anti-Monopoly Law

Abstract

The aim of the article is to analyse the internal and external drivers in the formation of new competition regimes. Drawing on the concepts of external governance and international policy diffusion, the article takes the enactment of China’s Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) as a case study to scrutinize the various channels through which emerging competition policy regimes have been shaped. It first illustrates the limits of recent research suggesting that the AML is essentially the product of EU competition rule export. Recognizing the specific features of China’s competition regime, we then investigate the domestically driven process of inspiration from abroad and customization to domestic conditions. By highlighting the diversity of sources in domestically driven rule selection, the article makes a first step towards capturing the complex diffusion process in international competition policy.