Bread riots in Mozambique left seven dead yesterday. The unrest – in Maputo – resulted in a further 280 people being injured, and followed the government’s decision to raise bread prices by 30 per cent.

Some newspapers this morning are speculating as to whether the Russian ban on wheat exports will result in a lot more of this. The FT quotes the FAO’s Abdolreza Abbassian as claiming, “This is quite serious. Two years in a row without Russian exports creates quite a disturbance.”

The FT story adds that ‘…Wheat prices have surged nearly 70 per cent since January, and analysts forecast further rises after Russia’s decision [to ban exports] and concerns about weather damage to Australia’s crop…’

Earlier in the year Australian farming website DTN said that ‘the harvest of Australian crops is still several months away, mostly in November and December, but if conditions remain benign, the nation will have the supply to achieve near-record exports’. However, a bone-dry Spring down under has changed the tone somewhat. Wheat crops in Western Australia, the country’s largest-growing state, are in urgent need of rain, and forecast output will likely be cut next month if a dry weather pattern continues. That said, east Australian rainfall has boosted yield potential in eastern states, and may well be enough to boost the nation’s overall harvest.

But will this be enough to feed the rest of the world?

Jakkie Cilliers, director of South Africa’s Institute of Security Studies, said concerns were growing about a possible repeat of the protests of 2008: “That certainly strengthened a return of the military in politics in Africa.”

In the light of all this, European wheat prices on Thursday hit €231.5 a tonne, only marginally less than last month’s two-year high of €236. As usual, this has taken much of the West by surprise – but not Beijing. I’m beginning to wonder if anything takes the Chinese by surprise: even if something did, they’d remain inscrutable about it in public.

Some years back now, the Chinese took the decision to be self-sufficient in wheat – and this they now are – comfortably. In 2009 China grew 115million tons of it – and the country also holds more than one-third of the world’s wheat reserves…. some 63m tonnes of stock according the US department of agriculture. And – again as foresight demands – over 85% of the Chinese crop is winter wheat….a strain far more resilient in the face of cold and/or drought.

But because of hugely growing domestic demand, the Beijing government discourages exports by pricing its wheat grain at something of a premium. All harmless enough, of course – and very sound self-defence against worker truculence. However, look at the trend: the US Department of Agriculture shows how from 2004 to 2008, Chinese wheat output increased at roughly 5% a year. In compound terms, that’s a lot – but in 2009, it grew from 103 million tons to 115 million – a much higher growth rate. China is now by far the world’s biggest wheat grower. It can thus add this to its leadership in gold, post-industrial metals like lithium….and American debt.

Sooner or later, all of life’s basics – money, food, water and energy – will become geopolitical bargaining chips. This isn’t dark conspiratorial cynicism: it’s extrapolation based on the nature and history of our species….and its continuing drive to cover the planet in people.

Nobody, but nobody, has planned more carefully for this eventuality than the Chinese People’s Republic. China befriends the weak and needy from Greece to South Africa – in fact, wherever struggling governments need money or technical help….and are either sitting on huge reserves of raw materials – or geographically placed in a strategically vital position. It is hard to argue against the wisdom of making yourself abundant in a world full of want. China is engaged in finalising that process, and the West is (if I may say so) far too distracted by other nonsense to have noticed the Big Picture.

This is not The Slog turning into the world’s most Sinophobic website. It’s merely me reminding all those who chuck brickbats about warming, cooling, breathing and farting that there are far bigger and more pressing issues: and these are water supply, energy supply, Asian imperialism, overpopulation and bonkers Islamism. (If you look at Saudi gold purchasing and wheat production, they’re going through the roof too.)

James Delingpole, take heed. And get a life.