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| HOME >> Topics List >> August, 2009 >> 13 (Thu) |
| China Approves Formal Arrest Of Rio Tinto Employees |
| = With apparent change: from leakage of state secrets to commercial espionage involving bribery = |
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Chinese prosecutors have approved the formal arrest of Rio Tinto's four employees including its chief representantive resident in China, Stern Hu, laying charges of bribery and obtaining commercial secrets. The matter has apparently changed its essence from the leakage of state secrets to commercial espionage case. Meanwhile, much is spoken about the article appeared on State Secrets Bureau's web site written by a former General Director of State Secrets Bureau in Huaian city, Anhui province. The writer has pointed out; "Protection of commercial secrets have regrettably not been respected from the beginning to nowadays", and "China has already been placed in the peak of intelligence game of commerce and trade", and "the Rio Tinto case has revealed defects of system, lack of autonomy, and deficiency in control and surveillance", for which one should be on the utmost alert. He spent much of his energy to the proposed improvement of current legal system and implementation methods for the protection of the country's key secrets. A Chinese news medium has it that Rio Tinto case is charged not only by the bribery of competent persons in large-scaled steel companies to obtain commercial information, but also by Stern Hu being suspected of having accepted bribes from small scaled steel companies that intended to get larger quotas of imported iron ore. Meanwhile, an Australian news agency comments that if the state secrets accusations against Rio Tinto's China iron ore team have been dropped to commerical espionage levels, this would open the way for a far more transparent judicial process, lighter sentences and perhaps even the possibility of Stern Hu being deported back to Australia. According to informed sources, the writer of the article on State Secrets Burea's web site is Jiang Ruqin, ex General Director of State Secrets Bureau in Anhui province. His article, titled "What does Rio Tinto case reflect?" includes the following statements: Since early July, Rio Tinto's case is in the spotlight among an large number of news media. "Much attention" is being paid both domestically and abroad, especially in Australia. Regardless of what charge and what sentence the case would result in, de facto a large amount of information and data has been found in the computers of Rio Tinto and it is more than obvious that huge damage has been caused to the national economic security and interest of China. By putting into practice "bribery, inappropriate acquisition of information, defeat one by one", the detained have committed commercial espionage for six years, almost driving Chinese steel companies under threat to over-pay some 700 billion yuan for imported iron ore, which corresponds to two-fold plus of the total profit all the Chinese steel companies earned during the period. What else would the 700 billion yuan mean? In 2008 the financial income of rapidly growing Jiangsu province was 273.1 billion yuan (second only to Guangdong province). So, the 700 billion yuan wastes 2.5 times the income of 70 million Jiangsu people. In addition, the 700 billion yuan exceeds the laborious one year's financial income of the four directly-controlled municipalities of Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing plus Liaoning province. Besides, it means it has taken 500 yuan off each Chinese person's spending. It further means China has donated for nothing to the owner of the economic spies the amount of US$100 billion, being equivalent to 10% of Australia's GDP. Furthermore, it has caused alltime losses to Chinese steel companies that consitute China's mainline industry. A local newspaper reported that Rio Tinto case is charged not only by the bribery to competent persons of large-scaled steel companies to obtain commercial information, but also by Stern Hu being suspected of having accepted bribes from small scaled steel companies that intended to get larger quotas of imported iron ore. For several years, the paper says, Hu Shitai has been piling up his own assets swiftly to be in possession of several luxurious villas worth hundreds of millions of yuan. |
| last modified : Wed 19 Aug, 2009 [10:23] |
