Word: steele
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...deliberate ratcheting down of a case that had stunned foreign investors in the country. After all, Beijing had effectively dropped the case's most ominous element: the charge that Rio's Stern Hu and his three colleagues had allegedly stolen "state secrets," in part by bribing executives of Chinese steel companies, who are Rio's largest buyers of iron ore. Under a state-secrets charge, the four men faced the prospect of a secret trial and the possibility of lifetime sentences. Now that the government will only charge them with using "improper means" to gain access to commercial secrets - commercial...
...overreached by originally alleging the theft of state secrets, this week's climbdown does not mean the government is looking for a face-saving way out of the situation. Far from it, in fact. The case - just as many outsiders had assumed - is rooted in what one Chinese steel-industry official called the "sense of outrage at the highest levels in Beijing" that Rio walked away in June from a $19.5 billion tie-up it had struck late last year with Chinalco, the Chinese state-owned aluminum company. To make matters worse, from Beijing's perspective, Rio then turned around...
...Commerce Minister Fu Ziying earlier this week insisted will show foreign investors that China is "ruled by law now," will proceed. And while the industry insiders interviewed by TIME do not have detailed knowledge of the specific charges likely to be brought against the Rio executives, they describe the steel and mining businesses - in China as well as other developing countries - as industries in which "side deals" involving key principles like executives and government officials are common. Despite Walsh's assertion that there is "no evidence" against the Rio execs, the widespread assumption among steel-industry insiders with experience operating...
...second tack is to prolong negotiations over the contract price of iron ore with the two main suppliers, hoping to wear them down while frantically moving to line up other potential sources beyond Rio and BHP Billiton for next year and beyond. China is the world's largest steel producer, and despite the global recession, its factories are running close to flat-out thanks to enormous infrastructure construction and brisk sales for new autos and apartments. That means it would appear to have little leverage in pursuit of the price cuts on iron ore that it seeks: a 45% reduction...
...Contrary to constant press reports in China and abroad, which say the Chinese side of the iron-ore price negotiations are being conducted on Beijing's side by the Chinese Iron and Steel Association, they are, in fact, being run straight out of Premier Wen Jiabao's office. And Wen, says the banking source, has "not been a happy man" since the Chinalco deal fell apart earlier this summer. Don't misread, in other words, the absence of the state-secrets charge against the Rio Four as evidence that the extraordinary face-off between China and one of the world...