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So you’re watching the Olympic Games and the usual suspects appear as advertisers… There’s Visa, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s…and BHP Billiton (NYSE ADR:BHP)? Who are those guys, anyway?

It does seem unusual for one of the biggest mining companies to sponsor the Beijing Games.

But as it turns out, this massive marketing campaign wasn’t targeted at Joe Sixpack watching the Olympics.

It was payback to Beijing, says Irwin Greenstein, writing for Contrarian Profits.

One clever mining company owns the lot… and it’s positioned next door to its biggest customer. Broker Cannacord Adams says this firm’s shares should be DOUBLE what they trade for today. But that’s not the half of it! China is DESPERATE for concrete and steel.

If this critical resource disappears, it could send the commodities market spiraling into a catastrophic domino effect.

Anyone, like us, who has suffered the interminable “wait in the hall” hiatus for which Heathrow is so notorious, should just regard it as training for sitting out mining’s major bid.

The base metals endured a serious bloodbath on Thursday. Copper fell off a cliff at the open of the New York session and never recovered, finishing at its intraday low of $3.6416/lb., down 10½ cents.

The base metals were all mired in the red again on Wednesday. Copper nosedived from the pre-dawn hours to the open of the New York session, bottoming at $3.69 before cutting about half its losses to finish at $3.7464/lb., down 5 1/3 cents.

The base metals were mostly in the red on Tuesday. Copper tumbled during the early part of the New York session, but rallied strongly from there to regain most of the lost ground and finish at $3.7999/lb., down a penny from Friday.

For months now, the big story in the Aussie market has been China’s Inc.’s stealth invasion of Australia through the share market. A Trojan equity horse, if you will. But maybe we had the story all wrong. Maybe the Pilbara is invading China!

The base metals were all mired in the red on Monday. Copper peaked during the pre-dawn hours and slid from there until the late morning, when it rallied slightly off its intraday lows to finish at $3.8245/lb., down 4¼ cents.