Easy as it is to connect China and metals with the boom decade that fizzled out in 2011, there are two more immediate reasons to link the two and neither will please many people in the mining industry.

The first is that Metals Week this year is effectively Chinese “owned”, because the 136-year-old organisation behind it, the London Metal Exchange, has been acquired by HKEx, the snappy new name for Hong Kong Exchange and Clearing.

The second, and more important reason for debating China is that at least one well-connected investment bank is concerned that Chinese control of world metal markets will snuff out the chance of a significant recovery in metal prices.

Of those two issues, the one that will most annoy the LME’s management team is the accusation that they are now controlled by China and, by extension, more likely to make decisions favouring the world’s dominant consumer of minerals and metals than the companies that produce the raw material.

On the control question there is room to argue, but not much, that the LME’s Hong Kong parent is not answerable to Beijing – except everyone knows that if push ever came to shove, Beijing’s wishes could not be ignored.

One of those wishes seems to be a change of the LME’s warehousing rules designed to force stockpiled metal onto the world market despite objections that opening the warehouse doors any wider would be of particular benefit to one major metal consumer; China.

The warehouse debate is a tricky one, with producers, consumers, banks and warehouse owners in various states of conflict.

The producers and banks quite like seeing metal stockpiled, because it keeps a surplus hidden from the market and it’s a way to trouser storage fees.

Consumers hate the way some stockpiles can be quarantined for a year or more because it can boost the price of the metal when they finally get access.

Until earlier this year, the LME sat on the sidelines. But that position changed when HKEx got its hands on the levers and now a fresh set of rules will come into force early next year with the aim being to force stockpiled material onto the market.

Not many mining companies will welcome the new rules because there is a danger that forcing open the warehouse doors will further depress metal prices, much to the delight of China.

Control of metals markets is something that China is keen to assume and something its government officials believe is the country’s entitlement because it consumes about 40% of most metals and should therefore be able to control prices – an extension of the old retailing rule about the customer always being right.

The question of metal market control was touched on last week by French bank Natixis, which proposed a fascinating theory of China’s end game – to moderate metal prices rather than act as a destabilising factor.

In other words, get control of world metal markets and prevent another boom, or, as Natixis put it: “During the period of rapid growth up to 2011, China’s influence on base metal prices was heavily pro-cyclical, exacerbating rallies and compounding slumps between 2005 and 2011.

“Throughout this period Chinese authorities looked forward to a time when their country’s influence on base metal prices might become more of a moderating factor than a destabilising factor.

“Since 2011, this desire has gradually turned into a reality”

Under the Natixis theory of Chinese market control, the spare capacity at home in China has become a market-regulating factor.

“In zinc in particular, responses by Chinese producers to price signals are clearly helping equilibrate (balance) supply and demand.”

What that means is that Chinese government officials can order the switching on (and off) of metal production to smooth metal prices and ensure that they are pitched at a level that is best for Chinese manufacturers – and that means low.

Add to the control influence over supply and demand, the newly acquired control of the LME via its good friends in Hong Kong and the market-deadening hand of China can be seen all over the future of metal markets.

What a shame then that China does not feature as a specific topic at the half-day seminar that marks the start of Metals Week and which, in true London style, opens at 8.30am, manages to fit in two refreshment breaks in the morning (10am and 11.45am) and then ends at a “drinks reception” at 1.05pm.

Ahh London, don’t you love it. A drinks party at 1.05 in the afternoon. Tough work, but someone has to do it and it’s far more pleasant than talking about tricky subjects such as China.