The National Development and Reform Commission's announcement last week that it is investigating two of the mainland's telecommunications giants for monopolising internet broadband services certainly stirred up a hornets' nest.
It highlights the fierce contention between two powerful ministries, the NDRC and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the official regulator of the two telecoms companies - a rare occurrence, as the central government is always keen to maintain unity and consensus in policymaking processes.
More importantly, the announcement went straight to the centre of the public debate over the biggest and most controversial stumbling block to the country's future economic growth - the monopoly of state-owned monoliths over key strategic sectors, from telecommunications and electricity to transport and oil.
As a sign of the sensitive and potentially explosive nature of the announcement, mainlanders are already split over how and where the NDRC's anti-duopoly investigation is going. Some hailed its announcement as determination by the central government to finally tackle state monopolies. Others expressed concern that the open confrontation between two ministries and the ensuing intense public debate may scare the mainland leadership into hastily wrapping up the probe, resulting in another typical policy blunder known as 'big thunder, little rain'.
Judging from the usual fashion in which a major policy change is announced, the NDRC's announcement through CCTV's afternoon news programme - making it the first case against big state-owned enterprises since an anti-monopoly law was introduced in 2008 - was not only sudden but also off the beaten track. Usually Beijing announces major policies through Xinhua, and they are later broadcast on CCTV's 7pm premier evening news. A Xinhua report at the weekend seemed to suggest that the NDRC took the unilateral action to make the announcement public, catching other ministries off guard.
It said the NDRC issued anti-monopoly notices to China Telecom and China Unicom in April, then decided in June that the two breached anti-monopoly regulations and was prepared to slap the two firms with combined fines of 8 billion yuan (HK$9.8 billion).