More details are in [link|http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=am2iq7nCACIQ&refer=home|this] story from Bloomberg (the URL may change):
China has already raised banks' reserve ratio, restricted lending to the steel, cement and aluminum industries and banned new construction projects to slow the economy and prevent inflation. Still, the second-largest economy in Asia grew at a faster-than-expected 9.7 percent in the first quarter with investment jumping 53 percent in the first two months, including a 173 percent increase in money invested in the steel industry.
``The other measures didn't work and it's too late for anything else,'' Andy Xie, the Hong Kong-based chief economist at Morgan Stanley Asia Ltd. ``The government wanted to use market- based measures to slow things down, because local banks, governments and property developers didn't care about the cost of capital. Now it has come down to quantity measures.''
It sounds like a desperation measure, not something to unfairly protect the Chinese economy. It looks like property, steel, cement and aluminum industries are especially overheated so they're the focus of the efforts.
As long as the yuan is pegged to the dollar, and China's economy is strong, China will have some unfair currency advantages. An excessively inflationary Chinese economy is not good for the world or the US. (What is excessive is left as an exercise for the reader.)
I don't think that inflation will necessarily reduce the wage differences between China and the US. (E.g. Mexico has had periods of high inflation but that hasn't made the real costs of Mexican labor higher.) I think you mean that
real wages need to rise in China. That will probably happen over time as long as the Chinese economy continues to grow, if it grows faster than the rate of growth of the labor force.
Some inflation is necessary in modern economies, but I wouldn't say it's "good" for a labor economy. Real wages on the whole will only increase if there's a shortage of labor, or if productivity improvements justify higher wages (unless I'm forgetting something).
TANSTAAFL. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.