Nasty battles nothing new

Dairy - Mengniu Dairy VS Yili Group

This October, An Yong, a manager at Mengniu Dairy, was arrested by police in Hohhot of North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region. He was suspected of planning a smear campaign against another milk manufacturer, Yili Group, in July this year. There had been online posts and media reports that some dairy products from Yili could cause early sexual development in children. Mengniu later released a statement on its website, saying Yili had spent more than 5.9 million yuan ($884,000) to hire a public relations company to launch a malicious campaign against Mengniu from 2003 to 2004.

Brewing - Yanjing Beer Group VS China Resources Snow Breweries Co Ltd

The 21st Century Business Herald reported that in April and May dozens of salesmen from the Yanjing Beer Group and China Resources Snow Breweries Co Ltd engaged in two gang fi ghts in Beijing because the former bought out the later's drinks from retailers so customers could not buy them. China Resources Snow Breweries Co Ltd reportedly did the same thing to Yanjing Beer Group in Central China's Wuhan city.

Telecommunications - China Mobile VS China Unicom

Media reports this year said that the regional company of China Mobile in South China's Guangdong province bribed university leaders and teachers to expand its market share at universities. Its marketing plan included free trips to the Expo 2010 Shanghai. Takungpao newspaper also reported that in 2009, police caught four thieves stealing electric cable. They were later found to be employees of China Mobile in Yan'an city of Northwest China's Shaanxi province. Their behavior resulted in a communication outage of more than seven hours for about 2,100 China Telecom users. And in December the same year, police reportedly found that the communication facilities of China Mobile in one residential district in Shanghai were purposely destroyed, which led to a communication interruption of more than six hours in the aff ected area. Further investigation revealed those responsible were from China Telecom's Shanghai offi ces, according to the Oriental Outlook.

Dringking Water - Nongfu Spring Co VS Master

According to a report by Oriental Outlook, in 2008 two spies slipped into the water plant of Master Kong in Hangzhou of East China's Zhejiang province to take photos, but were caught by the security guard. Soon after that, an online post claiming that Master Kong's mineral water was actually tap water was widely spread. The scandal reportedly led to a loss of 30 million yuan for Master Kong that year. Media reports said in September that one of the spies, Wu Chaochao, was a deputy manager of an advertising agency in which Nongfu Spring Co, a bottled water producer, has a controlling share.