Turnabout is fair play—or rather, fair trade, according to China, which on July 20 announced that it would launch countervailing duty (CVD) and anti-dumping (AD) investigations against the U.S. solar industry, as well as an AD case against South Korea.

In a move many say is calculated to exact quid pro quo for America’s protectionist trade actions earlier this year, China’s Ministry of Commerce is looking into whether the United States has been subsidizing exports of polysilicon, so that the vital raw material for photovoltaic solar products can be sold at below-market rates in the People’s Republic.

During the course of a yearlong inquiry, the ministry will examine a tax-exemption program for the "advanced-energy manufacturing industry" promoted by the U.S. federal government and 15 state-government sponsored programs in Michigan, Tennessee, Washington and Idaho, the ministry’s statement on the CVD investigation said.

As expected, the announcement has heightened tensions among industry players on both sides of the Pacific. However, when the Chinese case is considered on its own merits, it may be equally as compelling as the earlier U.S. trade complaint.

Just as the U.S. claim that China’s solar manufacturers were cutting prices could be seen as being largely legitimate, so too may be China’s grievances about the costs being charged by U.S. polysilicon suppliers. And in both cases, other sectors of the domestic industry—downstream in America and upstream in China—are protesting that the imposition of any punitive tariffs will cause collateral damage.

Indeed, both trade actions simply may be indicative of tensions in the solar market as a whole—magnified to the scale of the world’s two largest economies.