China locks-up Rio Tinto staff after blown deal

The international news cycle’s last three days have unfolded a blatant case of industrial bullying in China.

Rio Tinto, an Australian mining company with deep ties to Montana’s landscape and politics, had four of its employees thrown into a Chinese jail for supposed industrial espionage.

China threw four Rio Tinto employees in jail for stealing state secrets following a folded $19 billion deal. (Image courtesy: Economist)

Here’s the latest take from CNN. And here’s a startling piece of bullshit from the Chinese Commerce Ministry urging western countries that this whole debacle won’t hamper China’s international trade environment at all. Right.

As one reads more closely, it becomes clear that China reacted quite harshly when Rio Tinto backed out of a major $19 billion deal. China then accused company employees of bribing officials at 16 different steel mills for industry information, ie state secrets.

Surely, China is pursuing the noble path here.

We all know how serious Beijing is about following the rule of law. We also know the government’s absolute insistence on due process for the accused. And everybody knows that China takes a hard stand against corruption.

So it must be a solid case that Beijing is building against the Rio Tinto folks, and not a case of strong arm, Machiavellian intimidation tactics.

Australian PM Kevin Rudd, former diplomat to China, left the G-8 summit to figure out how to respond to China's hard-ball maneuver. (Photo Courtesy: Telegraph)

As we’ve posted about here, we’re no fans of Rio Tinto because the company treats Montana politicians like cash-thirsty prostitutes and our landscape like a giant portable shitter.

But, as we’ve also posted about in too many places to list here, we’re no fans of the Chinese government either. In short: environment, Tibet, the Uyghurs, South China Sea, stealing land from poor farmers, shipping away little girls into poverty, and the quashing of freedoms in general.

They also have cyber spies.

But despite our loathing of Rio Tinto, and the way they do business in Montana, the idea that a company could be bullied by a country like China simply to punish them for a failed business deal just doesn’t jive with any notion of functional free markets. It’s also a move that undermines any sense of legitimacy and good will in diplomatic circles.

Chinese and American markets are simply too intertwined for this kind of example to mark the Chinese alternative to a negotiated agreement.

We’ll stop short there, knowing our comments have probably alerted the likes of Chinese cyber-securitas.

ACTUALLY, WE APOLOGIZE FOR THESE FALSE AND MISLEADING STATEMENTS. CHINA IS A GREAT BEACON OF PROGRESS TO THE BARBARIC WESTERN WORLD AND THEIR IMPRISONMENT OF RIO TINTO INDUSTRIAL SPIES IS A BIG STEP TOWARD A FLOWERING ECONOMIC FUTURE. WE WROTE THE ALLEGATIONS ABOVE OUT OF OUR INDIGNANCE TO CHINESE DOMINANCE AND OUR IGNORANCE OF HOW GREAT AND WONDERFUL THE CHINESE NATION TRULY IS. WE ARE SORRY. ALSO THE DALAI LAMA IS A FOOL.