Photo: Philippe Leyroyer (flickr)

After all the protests during the U.S. and European legs of the Olympic Torch Relay, I figured a call to boycott Chinese goods may follow. Instead, it's the Chinese who are rallying behind a boycott.

The Financial Times reports on an online appeal asking Chinese consumers to stop buying French goods. Targeted brands include Louis Vuitton, Givenchy and L’Oréal.

I found one Chinese blogger who called the boycott appeal "immature" but nonetheless criticized Olympic protesters:

Olympics is like the Wedding Ceremony of PEOPLE in China, not the government. Imagine your reaction if someone try to ruin YOUR wedding, instead of your governor's wedding? Now the wedding of 13 billion people started to be ruined. Its not the government official who are not happy, it is everyone in the country who feel being hurt. Please understand the difference, and think about what is going to happen.

It remains to be seen whether such a boycott will gain popularity or have lasting effects on French companies. However, it's worth noting that France isn't even among China's top 10 trading partners, and that the same Financial Times piece notes that "a campaign against Japanese companies three years ago had little lasting impact."

On the contrary, a Chinese boycott of French goods, says Stratfor, a global intelligence service, "could come back to bite Chinese brands — potentially those of corporate Olympic sponsors."

Photo: Karl Grobl for NetAid

Rising global food prices pose a very real threat to political stability and individual well-being in many developing countries. Recent unrest in Haiti and Egypt indicate an increasingly widespread trend — in fact, the World Bank has identified 33 countries at risk of public disorder.

But what should be done? The Times of London argues that investing in agricultural infrastructure and allowing producers free access to world markets — by both developed as well as developing countries — is the only real solution.

U.N. and World Bank officials say "the perfect storm" of factors has led to skyrocketing food prices, leading to riots in places in Haiti.

Haitians took to the streets this week, with The Times Online reporting that protesters compared their hunger pangs to the burn of battery acid. U.N. Peacekeepers used rubber bullets in attempt to control the situation.

The riots in Haiti are not the first uprisings over food prices, which have risen 65 percent in the last six years. There have been riots in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Mozambique, and Senegal. A survey by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute says staple foods have risen by 80 percent since 2005. The price of rice is at its highest in the last 19 years and wheat is at a 28-year high.

“There is a risk that this unrest will spread in countries where 50 to 60 percent of income goes to food,” FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf told The Times Online. “This is due to higher demand from countries like India and China, where GDP grows at 8-10 percent and the increase in income is going to food.”