The culprit, or rather the lack of one: the fading aftershock of the Iran conflict that roiled global energy markets for much of the spring. Roughly a fifth of global petroleum flows pass through that narrow waterway, so when it effectively closed, crude prices surged and dragged energy costs higher worldwide. Oil prices dropped, and with them, the cost-push pressures that had temporarily lifted China’s inflation readings. Food prices continued their ongoing decline, a persistent drag on China’s headline inflation. The broader takeaway for global macro watchers is that China’s inflation spike was a geopolitical event, not an economic one.