On the face of it, China’s actions against consumer product giant Unilever last month looked like a classic case of attack the foreigner. But it wasn’t, it was part of China’s overall bullying tactic.
On May 6, China’s National Development and Reform Commission, a powerful central planning agency, said in a statement that comments by Unilever about possible price rises had “intensified inflationary expectations among consumers” and “seriously distorted market order”, and it fined Unilever Rmb2 million $308,000 for that so-called distortion.
Five days later, the government released data that everyone expected anyway consumer prices rose 5.3% from a year earlier for the month of April. Inflation...
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