China implemented in the controversy of soy the same strategy often used in international conflicts: silence public at marathon negotiations orders and doors inward.

The diplomatic clash with Argentina has not caused any official statement, even a brief note on the Xinhua news agency, traditional government spokesman. For Beijing, simply, as if nothing had happened.

The guideline of silence seems clear why the Ministry of Commerce, responsible for the alleged order to cancel the import of soybeans in Argentina, refused yesterday to give statements to this newspaper. Nor Argentina diplomacy in China became available to report on the progress of the talks. All that is known is that Argentina's embassy received on Monday an official communication informing him that, suddenly, the national soybean did not exceed the quality standards of China.

According to Bloomberg, the vice president of China Chamber of Commerce for Imports and Exports, Bian Zhenhua, is primarily responsible for the boycott of soybean in Argentina. A boycott, of course, is that for Beijing. The Commerce Ministry says the suspension of imports responds to the legitimate aim of supporting local soybean farmers. However, unofficially no doubt that this is a harsh reprisal for anti-dumping measures against Chinese products applied by the government of Cristina Kirchner.

The origin of Beijing's fury is that Argentina is implementing "unfairly" these anti-dumping measures to Chinese textile and industrial products, and the worst is that it is "an upward trend."

Asian property markets are very excited since the news broke. The countries of Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia, are in this crisis an opportunity to boost sales to China of its abundant palm oil. However, analysts refuse to be any great surprises.

"In fact, the reduction in the import of soy may increase prices and encourage local processors to import more seeds," said Tommy Xiao, an analyst at Shanghai JC Intelligence Co., for whom the suspension responds to an act clearly of retaliation.

Just look at the statistics to understand that this is a political decision. In the first two months of this year, Chinese imports of soybean oil rose 65% to 90,000 tonnes.

In economic terms, the export of soybeans in 2008 reached 14,400 million dollars. China is the target of 77% of soybean exports in Argentina.