Hello, welcome to a special MLEX podcast, looking ahead at our editorial priorities for this year.

My name is James Panicki, Mlex's Asia Pacific Senior Editor, and it's great to have

your company. Today, in the last program of the series, it's off to China, where our correspondent

Yonix Lee is gearing up for the new year, not just 2023, but also the Year of the Rabbit, with

festivities underway at the moment, and the year is likely to be a mixed bag for China.

On the one hand, the government will be keen to kickstart the economy following the abandonment of the zero COVID policy.

Authorities may also be keen to pay attention to geopolitical considerations when dealing with foreign companies.

Such considerations may end up filtering through to the country's antitrust authority as it sets its agenda for the coming year.

Yet even if the intensity of some enforcement is dialed back, competition policy is still likely to be front and centre as the government

sets out its priorities for business. The goal will be to allow notions of greater competitiveness

to permeate other policy areas. And with her take on the year ahead, here's M-Mex Greater China

Chief Correspondent, Yonix Lee.

In China, what we are looking out for this year is how China is going to apply the revised anti-monopoly law. The reason is that even though China revised the law last year and increased

penalties against antitrust violations, up until now the state administration for market

regulation, which is the antitrust regulator,

has not yet exercised its enhanced punitive power. So we are all eager to see the true colors

of the new law in the coming months. Take the high-profile case against CNKI as an example.

CNKI, the full name being China national knowledge infrastructure.

It is the largest academic database in China.

It was fined late last year by Samar about 90 million yuan for abuse of dominance.

And in that case, the regulator, even though it had the power to supercharge the fine by 2 to 5 times,

it didn't invoke this provision in this case.

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