welcome back beijing also among the
inflation fears
china's consumer inflation number coming
in at 1.3 percent last month
the producer price inflation was up to 9
that ppi number marking the highest rate
since 2008
the surging global commodity prices to
blame for higher ppi numbers in recent
months
joining me right now is the ceo of the
china beige book leland miller
leland good to see you thanks very much
for being here so many
issues surrounding china happy that
you're here to address some of them
so first let's talk the economy and
markets should we be worried about
inflation coming from china as well
good morning maria uh look the entire
inflation debate is playing out right
now in the united states we don't know
whether
it's going to be transitory or not far
too early to tell but i think what is
pretty clear right now is that we should
not be worrying about china exporting
inflation over here
in china beige book we track inflation
across the entire economy we track it by
sector we track it by region we track it
by firm size
and what we're not seeing is inflation
spiking broadly we're seeing it in very
specific sectors it's in manufacturing
it's a result of rising commodity prices
and
you're seeing some firms under pressure
and in some instances you're seeing
those costs being passed on
uh down the line but in general you're
not seeing a problem and most
importantly you're not seeing producer
prices as you just mentioned
being passed on to consumer prices
they're not raising prices on consumers
because the household sector remains
very weak in the aftermath of covid
and so you're you're seeing uh spots of
inflation issues
certainly beijing has some headaches to
deal with but from a u.s
policy maker perspective from a u.s
household perspective the idea of
inflation
being you know being exported over here
it should it should not be uh
on the list of concerns what do you make
of china now
wanting to get rid of major industrial
metals from its stockpiles in an effort
to tame the commodities price rally
leland yesterday the journal broke the
story that china is going to begin
selling uh some of its stockpiles and
things like
aluminum zinc copper your thoughts
yeah i think this makes a lot of sense
and and it's because people have have
really misunderstood what's happening in
china
you are seeing commodity prices go
through the roof there's no question
about that
but there's two dynamics the first is
you see real demand you see demand
recovering from cova dc international
trade recovering so there's a huge push
on demand
but at the same time you also see a huge
specula speculative element in this and
you know now about six months ago we
really saw that pick up in our data
this is not just real demand this is
people getting on the bandwagon to
invest in commodities because they think
commodities are going to go up
as part of this super cycle thesis so
what the chinese government's doing
right now they're not trying to reverse
prices overall they're not trying to
stop this
recovering uh demand wave what they're
trying to do is step in
and stop the speculative money ball
which is this
captive ball of uh of funds which which
can't escape china to diversify to the
rest of the world it's trapped there so
it just sort of bounces around between
equity is equities and bonds and
commodities and property
right now it's jammed into commodities
and commodities futures and what beijing
wants to do is just
just send the money ball elsewhere they
realize they can't stop these demand
trends they don't even want to but what
they want to do is stop the speculative
element
and that's why they're doing many of
these moves
well let me move on to some of the other
issues
around china because we know earlier
today
in hong kong 500 police officers
raided jimmy lies pro-democracy
newspaper
the apple daily authorities there
arresting five senior executives leland
jimmy lye has been on this program many
times
unfortunately he gave me his last
interview before he was hauled into jail
by
chinese thugs and as a result now he is
sitting
in prison they have seized all his
assets and that wasn't enough
the the authorities used phony national
security law
uh in in beijing to arrest the backbone
of the media organization's management
and raid his offices overnight your
thoughts
well it's clear they're trying for a
shock and awe campaign i mean you're
talking about
500 police officers ra rating i think
200 went him into the main offices and
500 were sent around
across the city in order to to to crack
down and send a message to apple daily
uh they call this a crime scene i mean
this was not sort of a
a you know a warning flare sent up this
was something that i think that they
want to send a really strong message
they tried to send it last august when
they arrested jimmy ly
now they're attacking the rest of paper
so this is obviously an attack on
freedom of the press
uh in hong kong which is which is
dissipating rapidly and
and the fact that they label it a crime
scene it shows
very clearly where they intend for this
to go
i mean where is the rest of the world on
this leland look what
china and the communist party has done
to hong kong in the last
year going in there with their goose
step police
arresting people laying the law down of
china with this new national security
law
nobody's saying a peep to the ccp
they're continuing this inter
incredible assault on they're obviously
afraid of the
apple daily uh and and they don't like
their freedom
and they're going to all be arrested
there's no commentary from anybody i
don't see this story anywhere i don't
see
outrage anywhere yeah i think that's one
of the problems we're seeing right now
is that
so many countries around the world are
seeing whatever china does
as a fair complete and when you look at
hong kong a lot of countries are saying
well there's nothing we could do
in hong kong it's chinese territory now
and so we have to look away
the problem is this doesn't stop in hong
kong this of course there's implications
for xinjiang there's implications for
tibet there's implications for the
south china sea and other areas so there
really is need right now for
a more unified view of what china's
doing and what constitutes
beyond beyond the pale
well democracy is being tested across
the world
it certainly is being tested in hong
kong
uh in the south china sea as a result of
the chinese communist party and so far
we are not seeing anybody step up i'd
love to hear from president biden about
this
but not a peep leland thank you so much
we will keep watching it and certainly
put a spotlight on it
we'll see you soon sir thank you thanks
maria