China’s state secrets watchdog has accused mining multinational Rio Tinto of engaging in commercial spying over six years, saying data on Rio computers showed the espionage came at a huge loss to China.
The report and other comments from the agency said the case of four Rio employees detained and accused of espionage, including one Australian, could foreshadow stricter controls on how foreign companies do business in China.
Rio has said its employees did nothing unethical and did not bribe Chinese steel mills for information.
The report issued by China’s National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets said Rio Tinto’s commercial spying involved “winning over and buying off, prying out intelligence, routing one by one, and gaining things by deceit” over six years.
“The large amount of intelligence and data from our country’s steel sector found on Rio Tinto’s computers and the massive damage to our national economic security and interests are plainly obvious,” said the Chinese-language report, issued on the administration’s Web site on Saturday.
China has detained the Rio workers — Australian Stern Hu (胡士泰) and three Chinese colleagues — on allegations of stealing state secrets about iron ore price negotiations.
The detentions have raised worries about doing business in China, strained ties with Australia and overshadowed critical price talks.
Rio’s share price, however, has been little affected.
The new Chinese report said Rio’s spying meant Chinese steel makers paid more than 700 billion yuan (US$102 billion) more for imported iron ore than they otherwise would have.
It did not explain how it arrived at this estimate.
A Rio spokeswoman in Australia said yesterday she was unaware of the Chinese report and declined to comment further.
The report from the secrets watchdog suggests the Chinese government is unlikely to drop the Rio case and could instead use it as a springboard for tougher information controls on domestic and foreign businesses.
It said the case should force Chinese officials and firms to do more to protect sensitive information, and that foreign businesses in China must come under stricter controls to deter them from spying.
“Our country has entered a peak period of commercial espionage warfare, and the threat to important economic intelligence and security of national economic activity increases by the day,” the report said.
The report and others on the agency’s Web site said the government should spell out more clearly what commercial data count as official secrets.
Contacts between local officials, experts and managers and foreign businesses should also be more strictly controlled, the report on Rio said, adding that “traitors” were enriching themselves at the expense of Chinese businesses.
“The Rio Tinto spying case has again sounded the alarm over secrets protection by our country’s state-owned enterprises and corporations,” Luo Jianghuai, a secrets protection official, wrote in an essay accompanying the report on Rio.
Luo said multinationals used Chinese staff with experience in local businesses and government to illicitly gain information and influence.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS