Harsh sentences against officials from Australia’s Rio Tinto company
For Australia, the trial was politically motivated because charges were laid only against the officials of the Anglo-Australian company. No one from the Chinese companies implicated in the affair were charged.
Defence lawyers complained that confessions extracted from officials working for these Chinese companies were used as the main evidence against their clients, and that the court refused their request to have these officials appear before the court to be cross-examined.
Foreign business groups in China were particularly interested in the verdict to gage the authorities’ attitudes towards foreign companies. For many foreign executives, the sentence was “harsher than expected”.
The heart of the problem is China’s definition of “state secret”, too vague and too dependent on the authorities’ whim for many observers.
Many are indeed still waiting to see if the harshness of the sentence will be circumscribed to this particular case, which is closely linked to the price of iron ore, of which China is a major consumer.
The trial has also come in for sharp criticism because it was held in camera; a request by Australian diplomats to observe its proceedings was in fact turned down.
The court also said that the interests of Chinese companies were harmed by the revelation of commercial secrets, putting them at a disadvantage vis-à-vis mining companies in negotiating iron ore prices.
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