I haven't seen the Chinese buying any precious metal in the last 5 years any where on Earth, but in the last 5 years (especially in the last 2 years) they have been investing heavily in non precious minerals in Canada, Australia, Africa, and South America. Recently China have increased their energy/mineral investment in Canada over 200% for the year of 2009 compare to their 2007 investment in Canada (same goes for Australia). And, China investment in Africa has increased over 2000% for non precious mineral in Africa. There is also a hint that China investment in Indian mineral may decrease over the next 5~10 years.
A bout 1/3 of my investment ideas come from reading miningnews.com
Like I have said above, where did you get your information, and please provide link/s.
I don't parrot what others say. This is purely my theory. I don't have the link, but recently the Chinese have raised their concerns on US deficits and outstanding debt, and hinted their desire to diversify.
IMO they will not be selling what they have, but I think they will stop buying new. What are their choices to park the dollars they love to hoard? If they don't like the dollar, they won't like other fiat. So the only choices are precious metals and other commodities.
But going back to your point on investing in copper and zinc, etc, how are you doing this? Are you going to home depot and hoarding copper piping? Or are you buying mining stocks?