Rio arrests reflect Beijing financial jitters
China’s arrest of Rio Tinto staff for spying points to economic worries in Beijing, a security analyst said, and an Australian newspaper reported China’s president endorsed the Rio investigation.
The arrest of Rio’s top iron ore salesman in China helped push down shares on Monday in BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, the world’s two largest iron ore firms respectively. The arrests and protracted price talks between Rio and Chinese steel mills unsettled investors, traders said.
The arrests have cast a shadow over Australia-China ties, which have been key to Australia avoiding a recession in 2009, and placed pressure on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, a former Beijing diplomat and fluent Mandarin speaker, to personally contact Chinese President Hu Jintao.
Anglo-Australian miner Rio was in intense price negotiations with China when Australian Stern Hu and the three others were detained in Shanghai, accused of stealing state secrets and bribing Chinese steelmakers for information.
The investigation into Rio appears to be part of a realignment of how China manages its economy in the wake of the global financial crisis, with spy and security agencies promoted to top strategy-making bodies, the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper said on Monday.
The nine-member standing committee of China’s Communist Party, led by President Hu, had taken more control over economic decisions at the expense of the State Council, led by Premier Wen Jiabao, it said, quoting anonymous Chinese economic advisers.
The president endorsed the Rio investigation, it said.
International security analyst Clive Williams said every country, not only Australia, now faced difficulties dealing with China, because of the country’s looming economic problems and leadership sensitivities about them payday loans with no fax.
“It’s a difficult time to be dealing with China, because in a state-owned economy there is a certain amount of blow-back from economic stagnancy to the leadership,” Williams, from the Strategic and Defense Studies Center, told Reuters.
Chinese state-owned companies have been trying to portray themselves as independent, commercial entities as they roam the world buying up companies and sourcing raw materials, but may now face suspicions they are fronts for Beijing, analysts say.
Australia has urged Chinese authorities to handle the case expeditiously, and to consider the wider risks for international business confidence.
But Australia, which has relied on China’s insatiable appetite for its minerals to protect its economy from the global financial crisis, is treading carefully.
“When matters of this kind occur, not all of the processes between the governments (are) played out in public,” Australian Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner told local radio.
“It’s very important that we focus on achieving the best possible out outcome … and sometimes that involves things that go on behind closed doors, just ordinary diplomacy, rather than this just shouting at people in public.”
Australian authorities are pressing for details of the allegations against Hu, as China had still not revealed to them any evidence supporting the detentions.
Filed under: legal by Specialist