What is more, the far smaller factories in other Asian countries have little capacity to absorb the huge orders that Chinese factories routinely handle, corporate executives and economists said.

In China, there is little question that the consumer price index understates the true extent of inflation.

A holdover from the days of central planning, the Chinese consumer price index includes apartment rents but excludes soaring costs for owner-occupied housing. And it is based heavily on the prices of an outdated list of consumer products that are no longer popular. Garments qualify for inclusion only once they have been on sale continuously for at least six months, for example, which frequently means that they are no longer in style.

Hu Xingdou, an economist at the Beijing Institute of Technology, said that a more accurate gauge of inflation would show consumer prices rising 10 percent a year. The National Bureau of Statistics has said it is actively studying ways to improve the consumer price index.

Inflation in China is not just the result of China’s currency market intervention, although Mr. Hu and other economists describe it as the biggest single cause. Another cause is aggressive lending by Chinese banks, despite repeated demands by regulators to slow things down.

Rising prices for exports are also caused by wage increases for Chinese blue-collar workers, whose pay has been climbing as much as 15 percent a year. Those workers have more clout than they once did because the supply of factory labor from rural areas, which once seemed inexhaustible, is starting to dry up  a result of three decades of China’s “one child” policy of family planning, as well as a big expansion in university enrollment.

And globally, strong demand from consumers in China and other emerging economies is pushing up not only gasoline prices, but also the prices of cashmere, rabbit fur, cotton, copper and many other commodities.