BEIJING, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) on Wednesday described a combined anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation by the United States into Chinese off-road tyres as wrong.

    The U.S. Department of Commerce decided Tuesday that it would launch anti-dumping and anti-subsidy probes simultaneously into China-made off-road tyres.

    It was the fifth such probe the U.S. had launched against Chinese imports in less than a year, said MOC spokesman Wang Xinpei, adding the frequent dual investigations were an abuse of World Trade Organization rules.

    The U.S launched the dual investigations into China-made coated free sheet paper in March, and carbon steel tubes in June, and into light-walled rectangular pipes and tubes and laminated woven sacks in July.

    Wang said the probes were unfair to Chinese industry and unhelpful to the development of a mutually beneficial Sino-U.S. trade relationship. He added it was an "unwise, wrong move".

    China hoped the U.S. would make tangible efforts to tackle the problem and avoid making Sino-U.S. trade issues more complicated, said Wang.

    As the U.S. did not treat China as a market economy, the use of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures infringed U.S. rules and its tradition of not adopting anti-subsidy measures against non-market economies, which had been practiced for more than two decades, Wang said on July 20.