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[quote=MARRIE,307729]New China Stumbles Into Old-Fashioned Trade Scandal
Losses on Copper Futures Have Leadership Spinning

By Peter S. Goodman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 25, 2005; Page D01

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, Nov. 24 -- China on Thursday acknowledged that a since-detained government trader placed a series of disastrous bets on the price of copper in London this summer, leaving the state to cover hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, according to a report in official Chinese media.

As rumors of the scandal filtered out this month, China first denied the existence of the trader, and then branded him a rogue operator. Thursday's report in the official China Daily newspaper suggests that the Communist Party-led government has resolved to take responsibility for a scandal that has roiled commodity markets while renewing fundamental questions about the transparency of the fast-growing economy.

China's fortunes and those of the global economy are increasingly intertwined, with decisions made by rulers in Beijing and traders in Shanghai rippling out to markets from New York to Tokyo. Once bent on self-sufficiency, China has in recent years developed a voracious appetite for raw materials, becoming the world's largest buyer of copper, iron ore and steel, as well as the second-largest purchaser of oil. This month copper prices soared to record levels on the assumption that China will eventually have to buy large quantities to square its accounts after the trading debacle.

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