Alongside the rise in foreign trade volume, soaring trade remedy probes are vexing the world's second largest economy.

Twenty-one countries initiated 77 trade remedy investigations targeting Chinese products, up 11.6 percent from 2011, said the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) on April 8.

The probes involved $27.7 billion in trade, a year-on-year surge of 369 percent from 2011. Among the most notable cases was the European Union's anti-dumping investigation into imports of solar panels and key components from China.

In March, China's Permanent Representative to the WTO, Yi Xiaozhun, warned that China should be mindful of increasing trade friction with European countries and the United States, as they are adopting increasingly harsh measures against Chinese exports.

Over half of the world's countervailing measures are directed against China, said Yi.

Song Ping, an investigator with the MOFCOM, said that the soaring amount of cases have grown out of China's speedy economic expansion and rocketing foreign trade.

He attributed the issue to growing trade protectionism following the global financial crisis and the imbalanced market goals of Chinese enterprises.

In the first quarter of 2013, China was targeted by 22 such cases, up 22.2 percent from the same period of 2012, the MOFCOM said.