i trade the shanghai stock exchange via citic. You can probably dig around their webiste to see if they have those ag futures. Last i checked the futures market in china just got established and wasnt very "reliable", but the way things are flying over there maybe it's a lot better now? also i believe you need to be a chinese citizen or a perm resident to open a rmb account / trade on the chinese exchanges. Time to mail order a wife! there's also a limit on how much money can be wired out of china, so if you wire in 7 figures to establish an account, it will take some time to get all that money out. I believe it's 50k usd per person per day (or maybe per week, dont remember).
Stock index futures are very new, but commodity index futures have a long history, are very sophisticated/liquid. Uhm... the regulations also apply to funds entering China, doesn't it? My experience has actually been $50k USD per person per *year* in other contexts. Regulations courtesy of SAFE, State Administration of Foreign Exchange.
You are right. All contracts are small( 1 to 4 $ per tick per tick approx. ) , that's why volume is big. And fees are bigger than minimum tick... However it is still impressive.
The Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange recently was in the news: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/24/china-rapeseed-idUSL4N09Y2S220121224 "China's securities regulator has given approval to the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange to trade futures contracts in rapeseed and rapeseed meal, a move aimed at helping companies manage price risks." Now they will have contracts on rapeseed, rapeseed meal and rapeseed oils. That's just great.