China's Ministry of Commerce said Friday that Anglo-Australian miners Rio Tinto Plc (RTP) and BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP) would be expected to undergo the Chinese government's antimonopoly review if the nature of the two companies' joint venture requires it.

But the issue isn't likely to affect trade relations between the two countries, an official in the ministry's media department told Dow Jones Newswires.

The ministry's position is considerably tamer than the Chinese rhetoric reported by the Sydney Morning Herald Friday, which cited another commerce ministry official as saying that China may impose trade sanctions against BHP and Rio Tinto if they pursued the joint venture without Chinese regulatory approval.

"According to China's antitrust law, we can veto such a merger agreement if the concentration of overseas business operations will affect domestic market competition," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Ma Yu, director of the Ministry of Commerce's foreign investment department, as saying.

The official at the ministry's media department said Ma didn't represent the ministry when he made his remarks.

"We have not received much information on the new joint venture to date, so we cannot comment yet on how it would affect monopoly issues," the official said.

BHP and Rio Tinto entered into a joint venture for their iron ore supply operations last week after Rio Tinto terminated its US$19.5 billion planned alliance with Aluminum Corp. of China, or Chinalco.

-By Chuin-Wei Yap and Juan Chen, Dow Jones Newswires; 8610 6588 5848; chuin-wei.yap@dowjones.com