doug, chinese entity just recently bought a major miner (major minor? no) a few months ago –you gotta keep up with the dry bulk shippers to know how much of a commod is being ‘locked up’ in the ground vs how much is being delivered raw, and also how much of THAT is being warehoused. Start with google finance site –it’s very linked up –and look at say freeport mcmoran and/or rio tinto for starters –you’ll find a list of competitors there, go to each and look at their latest deals. Takes an hour but you can know more about china and copper than just the cw that ‘china is buying copper’–which is true but not the whole story. And yes, they are trying to hedge the dollar –but not so much that they start (restart) a commod run and thereby lower the dollar (dollar is ‘coupled’ inversely lately to the ‘commod basket’ –which is itself in a week to week couple/decouple with the oil spot).

Also, a big new copper discovery and/or mine in Afghanistan –China bought it –just a few weeks ago the news carried it –