CHINA: Rio Tinto Reports Misguided

2010-3-30

By Jin Dou

CHINA'S investment environment is far from perfect, hampered as it is by many elements such as business bribes.

Cracking down on bribes would help clean the field for doing business in China, but CNN, BBC and a host of other Western media argued otherwise in their loaded reports of the Rio Tinto case.

The Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court yesterday sentenced four employees of the British-Australian mining giant, including one Australian national (Stern Hu, who headed the firm's Shanghai office), to seven to 14 years in prison for bribery and stealing commercial secrets.

CNN reported yesterday: "Executive Stern Hu's admission of accepting bribes led to leniency, the court said, reducing his sentence to 10 years total... The case against Hu and three other employees of the British-Australian company was closely watched over fears of a government crackdown on foreign companies doing business in China."

Indeed, Stern Hu admitted he had taken bribes. It was not a forced guilty plea. How could this man's fall from grace translate into "a government crackdown on foreign companies doing business in China?" In so strenuous an argument, CNN was literally saying that Stern Hu represented most foreign business people in terms of morality. He did not.

Apparently knowing that such an argument could only turn CNN into a laughing stock, a CNN anchorman yesterday tried to appear more critical by asking why China had singled out Rio Tinto for punishment while bribery is not uncommon in China.

This anchorman should have done more solid homework by researching how many Chinese officials and business people had been arrested, even executed, for bribery or embezzlement. If he were an average, not to say a good, journalist, he would not have used the phrase "singled out" to describe China's handling of the Rio Tinto case.

The BBC wrote yesterday: "The trial has heightened concerns among the foreign business community in China. Australian diplomats have expressed concern about the lack of transparency in China's conduct of the trial."

If the trial really "heightened concerns," it did so among bribe takers, foreign or Chinese. It would only be victory for the business community, foreign or Chinese, who are clean and honest.
As for a fair trial, China's laws are there for all to see before anyone enters the Chinese market.

The laws say clearly that a case involving commercial secrets can be handled in private if one party so proposes. Rio Tinto knew that when it came to China. BBC reporters should have known that before they wrote the story. China did not twist its laws just for Rio Tinto. China is open to criticism, but critics need to be capable of critical reasoning in the first place.

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