China began an antitrust investigation against Google in response to raising US imported duties

The State Administration for the regulation of the PRC market announced that the investigation against Google will begin in connection with the alleged violations of the country’s antimonopoly legislation, although the company’s search services included in the Alphabet holding since 2010, writes Bloomberg. The statement of the department came after the announcement of China about additional duties for some goods from the United States.

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The Ministry of Finance of the PRC announced the introduction of an additional tariff of 15 % of the import of coal and LNG from the United States, starting on February 10. It was also announced an increase by 10 % of duties for supplies from the United States raw oil, agricultural equipment and some models of cars and trucks. This increase in duties is made in response to the US decision to introduce a 10 percent tariff for the import of goods from China in addition to existing duties, which came into force on February 4.

In addition, China introduced export control of the supply of tungsten, ruthenia, molybdenum and other critically important metals used in the electronic, aviation and defense industry, and also added to the “black” PVH list owning the Calvin Klein brand and the American sequencing company Illumina genes.

As Reuters noted, an additional 10 percent tariff for electric trucks imported from the United States can be applied to the future supplies of Tesla Cybertruck, Elon Musk, which it promotes in China. Tesla has not yet commented on this step.

As for Google, although its search service has not been available in China since 2010, the company continues to engage in the country as an advertising business. Perhaps he will become the subject of investigation of the Chinese authorities.