Some blame bad weather, such as the October floods in China's Hainan province, which damaged crops and helped raise food prices.

ECONOMIST: Memories of 2008 are influencing Asia��s policymakers

Indeed, the island province of Hainan off the southern coast even wants to leapfrog such decades-old technologies as credit and debit cards and automated teller machines and move directly to microchip-laden smart cards.

CNN: HESE DAYS WHEN CHINESE