China’s broadly measured money supply has surged in the last two years, soaring 54 percent as its central bank has supported the export economy by intervening in currency markets to keep the renminbi artificially low. Considerable cash is also sloshing around the Chinese economy because of two years of extremely heavy lending by state-owned banks to finance a highly successful economic stimulus program that has returned the country to double-digit growth.

But China’s leaders are now clearly worried about the inflationary side effects of those financial policies. The premier, Wen Jiabao, has toured southern China over the last week and was shown on national television late Tuesday night expressing concern about rising food prices and promising that the government would take action.

Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the central bank, had said earlier on Tuesday that the amount of money racing through the global economy was putting pressure on emerging economies that want to control inflation. And Yao Jian, a commerce ministry spokesman, said at a press conference on Tuesday that the government would tighten scrutiny of foreign investment so as to prevent too much money from pouring into China as foreign investors seek higher returns than are currently available in the West.

Imposing price controls and other administrative controls on the Chinese economy runs counter to the steps recommended by many Western experts. They have suggested that China should further deregulate its economy, let the renminbi appreciate and otherwise rely on market forces to tame inflation.

The standard policy prescription from Washington has been that China should raise interest rates, as a way to slow investment and prevent the economy from overheating. And American policy makers from President Obama down have argued that if China would let the renminbi rise against the dollar, oil and other commodities would be less expensive in China, helping to tame inflation. But Beijing has resisted, in large part because Washington’s prescribed medicine would reduce the price competitiveness of Chinese exports to the United States and elsewhere.