A number of Chinese solar panel makers and U.S. analysts have opposed or questioned the U.S. government's decision to levy more tariffs on solar panels imported from China.

However, U.S. President Barack Obama claimed the move represented "the first step" to level the playing field with China.

The U.S. anti-subsidy probe was mostly politically driven and against fundamental legal principles, as the U.S. Congress passed a bill earlier this month to empower the Commerce Department to impose countervailing duties on imports from non-market economies, the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products (CCCME) said in a statement on Wednesday.

Imposing more duties on Chinese solar panel products will undermine the development of the global solar panel market, and will do more harm to the U.S. market, the CCCME warned.

The U.S. Commerce Department announced Tuesday that a preliminary investigation found that Chinese solar panel makers had received 2.9 percent to 4.73 percent of subsidies from the Chinese government. Therefore, the department might levy the same amount of tariffs on Chinese imports.

"In fact, just yesterday, our administration determined China wasn't playing fair when it came to solar power," Obama said Wednesday in Bouldere City, Nevada, after touring a solar panel field at the Copper Mountain Solar 1 Facility, the largest photovoltaic plant operating in the United States. "And so we took the first step towards leveling the playing field."

Some Chinese solar panel producers including some of the largest firms in the country have voiced their opposition to the U.S. move.

Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd., which is arguably the world's largest producer of silicon solar modules and owns production facility in Arizona, insisted that it operates without anti-competitive subsidies from the Chinese government.

"This initial decision reflects the reality that Suntech's global success is based on free and fair competition," the company's chief commercial officer Andrew Beebe said in a statement.

"As a global company with global supply chains and manufacturing facilities in three countries, we are well prepared for the future. Regardless whether tariffs are imposed on solar cells from China, we can provide our customers in the U.S. with hundreds of megawatts of high-quality and affordable solar products that are not subject to tariffs," Beebe said.

Yingli Green Energy, headquartered in Baoding, China, is one of the world's first fully vertically integrated photovoltaic manufacturers. The company said it will continue to play an active role in the U.S. market.

"We will continue to fight for affordable solar energy and further growth of the tens of thousands of U.S. solar jobs that we help to create," said Robert Petrina, managing director of Yingli Green Energy Americas, Inc. "Regardless of the outcome of this proceeding, we remain dedicated to the U.S. solar market."

Before the U.S. government announced its decision Tuesday, some American analysts expressed their opposition to imposing more import tariffs while others questioned if the move could achieve the goal of protecting American producers.

Scott Franklin, founder and president of Lighthouse Solar and Lumos Solar in Boulder, Colorado, said the hiking tariffs would hurt growing local industry.

Franklin last Tuesday said in an article that if a tariff is imposed, Chinese Mainland manufacturers will simply shift their production to other Asian markets including Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam. Such a transfer does nothing to help the domestic solar manufacturing market, said Franklin.

"The proposed tariff could halt the growth in solar businesses and jobs," he said, citing a recent study by an economic consulting firm, the Brattle Group.

The study showed that high tariffs on imported solar panels would result in the loss of as many as 32,712 jobs in solar industry in 2012, 40,593 by 2013 and 49,589 by 2014.

"Besides costing jobs, a special tariff and soaring prices would make it more difficult for families to increase their home values by investing in solar energy systems," he added.

Melanie Hart, a policy analyst on Chinese energy and climate policy, and Kate Gordon, vice president for energy policy at the Washington D.C. -based Center for American Progress, also stressed that imposing high import tariffs on the Chinese products is merely a partial solution to the problem.

"The best thing the U.S. government can do is to create a good environment for technology innovation, and that will require a combination of demand-side policies and protection from adverse price incentives," they wrote in an article published on the center's website last Thursday.