Russia is guilty of creating a food security crisis and higher energy prices through its war with Ukraine, but China has taken actions in three areas that are compounding inflation worldwide.
The war in Ukraine has taken a terrible toll on the region, as Russia blocks vital exports.
They wrote in a note last week that there is another risk to global food security.
The trouble with China is that it continues to act like a small country ... they can also be beggar-thy-neighbor, with China selecting the policy that solves a domestic problem by passing along its cost to people elsewhere.
There are restrictions and tariffs imposed by China on two major commodities.
China has curbs beyond food. The Asian giant, one of the world's biggest steel producers, has imposed restrictions on the material.
According to the report, all those moves have led to higher prices elsewhere.
The trouble with China is that it acts like a small country. The analysts wrote that its policies often have the desired effect at home, such as reducing input costs to industry or one set of Chinese farmers.
They can be beggar-thy-neighbor, with China selecting the policy that will solve a domestic problem by passing along its cost to people elsewhere.
The price offertilizer in China and around the world went up last year as a result of strong demand and higher energy prices, but have gone up even more following the Russia-Ukraine war.
In July of last year, authorities ordered major Chinese firms to suspend exporting to ensure the supply of the domestic chemicalfertilizer market. Authorities began mandating additional scrutiny on exports as prices continued to rise.
The curbs will last until at least the end of summer, according to the report.
The combination of nontariff barriers led to a decline in Chinesefertilizer exports. The analysts wrote that with more production kept at home, Chinese fertilizer prices leveled off and have since started to fall.
That was in contrast to the situation in the world, where the price offertilizer continued to soar more than twice the levels seen a year earlier, the think tank said.
Before the restrictions, China had a 26% share of global fertilizer exports.
The decision by China to take supplies off world markets only pushes the problem onto others, according to analysts.
The Russia-Ukraine war is threatening the global food supply, so it could hardly come at a worse time, they said. Grains such as wheat, corn, and sunflower oil are exported by Russia and Ukraine.
At a critical moment, China needs to do more to help overcome the potential humanitarian challenge likely to arise in many poor, fertilizer- and food-importing countries.
Authorities lifted a ban on steel scrap imports last year in order to bring down prices. They increased export taxes on five steel products.
By March this year, China's steel prices were 5% lower than before.
The decreases came at the expense of the rest of the world, where prices are still higher than in China.
The story of higher pork prices began in China, which saw its hog population hit by an outbreak of African swine fever.
Pork prices in the country more than doubled by the end of the year. World prices went up 25% as China imported more pork and pulled supplies off markets.
China reduced the price pressure at home by tapping into imports before shutting them down. The policies affected the rest of the world.
The think tank said that Beijing cut tariffs on pork imports in 2020 which likely caused consumers elsewhere to suffer higher prices.
This year, authorities raised those tariffs again because of the easing of the swine fever problem.
The report said that a potential benefit will be reaped if, in the current environment of high meat prices, China's tariffs unexpectedly frees up world supplies and helps mitigate pressure on pork prices facing consumers outside China.
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