【英语中国】小小绿豆背后的大阴谋

The mung bean is a humble commodity: tiny, green and unfortunately named.

So it was reassuring when the state-run Xinhua news agency ran a story Thursday that put the little guy in the limelight as the latest victim to be rescued from yet another of China's price-collusion scams.

The key perpetrator, government officials told Xinhua, was a trading house called the Jilin Corn Center Wholesale Market Co. Ltd. The midsized company, which didn't respond to calls from Dow Jones, allegedly invited more than 100 mung bean dealers to an industry conference in October, where it was said to spread misinformation about low mung bean production levels.

Prices went up. Government scrutiny followed. The Jilin Corn Center wholesaler eventually got the maximum fine of 1 million yuan ($147,477).

Prices for mung beans soared in the last year, tripling in places and quadrupling in Beijing. Since the government crackdown, they've eased back down to October levels of around 9 yuan a kilogram.

The bean is widely used as a staple in Chinese cuisine, from glassy noodles to soups and desserts. Its popular appeal to the palate was also bound to prompt some to talk up its apparent medical properties.

So the mung bean was a great poster child for the government to act upon, given persistent concerns in China about food-related price inflation.

It's not the only food where scams are believed to be behind recent price hikes: Garlic is another, and until two years ago, tea in China's southwestern provinces was too.

These incidents also aren't limited to China. In neighboring Mongolia, goats and sheep were at the center of a kind of subprime-loan collapse.

With the worst of the mung-bean hysteria hopefully behind the country, the government has created two more offices - the Anti-Monopoly Office and the Market Price Supervision Office - to 'control monopolistic behavior and curb market manipulation.'

Good luck, fellas. Food inflation isn't likely to go away, and scams are part and parcel of the commodity market cycle. These offices will have their work cut out for them.

绿豆是一种谦卑的大宗商品：小小的、绿绿的、名字毫不起眼。

Wikipedia因此，新华社上周四的一则报导让人很是安心。报导中说，绿豆成了从中国又一起哄抬物价事件中拯救出来的最新牺牲品，这个小家伙由此成了关注的焦点。

新华社援引政府官员的话说，主谋是一家名为“吉林玉米中心批发市场有限公司”的贸易公司。这家中型企业涉嫌于去年10月邀请100多家绿豆经销商参加一个行业大会。据说，吉林玉米中心批发市场有限公司在会上散布有关绿豆减产的谣言。该公司没有回复道琼斯通讯社请求置评的电话。

绿豆价格随之上涨。接着是政府的审查。吉林玉米中心批发市场有限公司最终被处以最高人民币100万元（合147,477美元）的罚款。

过去一年中，绿豆价格大幅飙升，有些地方价格涨了两倍，而北京更是涨了三倍。自政府的打击行动以来，绿豆价格回落到了去年10月份的水平，即每公斤约人民币9元。

绿豆在中国饮食中被广泛使用，从晶莹剔透的面条、汤到甜点到处可用。绿豆让人普遍接受的美味也势必会引发一些人鼓吹绿豆似是而非的药用特性。

因此，鉴于中国对食品相关价格上涨持续不断的担忧，绿豆成了政府打击行动的一个绝好的典型。

绿豆并非唯一一种据信因炒作而造成最近价格飙升的食品：大蒜也是一种，直到两年前，茶叶在中国西南省份也是串通涨价的牺牲品。

这些事件也并非仅限于中国。在中国的邻国蒙古，山羊和绵羊曾是一场次级贷款灾难般市场崩溃的核心。

但愿哄抬绿豆价格的风头已经过去了，政府随后成立了两个新的机构──反价格垄断处和市场价格监管处──来控制垄断行为、遏制市场操纵。

祝他们好运。食品价格上涨不太可能会消失，哄抬价格是大宗商品市场周期的一部分。这些办公室将有得忙了。