Australian Gov’t Looks Like A Bunch of Petulant Xenophobes
As an American, I am more than familiar with xenophobic rhetoric. I know it when I see it, and when I see it, it makes me ill.
The recent arrest of executives from Australian mining giant Rio Tinto has caused quite a stir in the foreign investment community, diplomatic circles, etc.
A few days ago, when the Chinese government confirmed that the case was a purely criminal matter, it looked like the Australian government was going to shut up and let normal procedures go forward.
Apparently not.
In the interest of brevity, I’ll constrain myself to the choice quotes from the Reuters piece that went out yesterday. Lots more out there on the Interwebs if you want more red meat.
Australia’s Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said on Tuesday he will raise China’s detention of an Australian Rio Tinto mining executive for spying with his Chinese counterpart at a regional security meeting in Thailand.
Smith said he hoped to meet China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi at this week’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum in Phuket in what would be the highest-level meeting yet on a case that has strained Australia-China ties.
This is ludicrous. Whatever information there is that the Chinese government wants to tell Australia about this case has already been discussed. A higher-level meeting, where Smith says how concerned he is about the situation and his counterpart confirms the gravity of the case and how careful and meticulous the investigators are being doesn’t seem all that productive to me.
As usual, am I being too cynical, or is Smith just going through the motions for the press and the Australian Chamber of Commerce?
Here’s another good one:
The Australian government and Rio have said the detentions will not affect trade, but an influential opposition lawmaker has warned the detentions could see laws covering investment in Australian resource firms by foreign government-controlled entities, including state-owned Chinese firms, tightened up.
Senator Barnaby Joyce, the leader of the conservative Nationals party in the upper house, said he would push for the Senate Economics Committee, inquiring into foreign investment by state-owned enterprises and sovereign wealth funds, to recommend an overhaul of foreign-investment regulations.
“It raises all sorts of complications with corporate issues becoming diplomatic issues. I don’t have to prove that any more in the light of the Stern Hu case,” Joyce told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper on Tuesday.
This guy was already a protectionist, I would guess. Now he can be a protectionist opportunist.
Ironically, the sort of punitive treatment he is talking about sounds a lot like the reciprocity-based system relied upon by the Chinese government when it comes to foreign investment. Joyce should quit Canberra and come to work in Beijing. His expertise would be welcome here.
Last, but not least:
An Australian government lawmaker and foreign policy expert on Tuesday said China’s justice system had only a “facade of legality” and that Canberra had “learned the hard way” that Australia-China relations must be handled carefully.
But Michael Danby, the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee of Australia’s Parliament, said prime minister Rudd should not intervene with China’s top leadership.
“The days when Western countries can demand exemption for their citizens in any Asian country are over, even in China, which maintains only a facade of legality,” Danby wrote in the Wall Street Journal.
Kudos to Danby for the veiled historical reference to extraterritoriality, which I talked about here the other day. To me, the history of foreign traders/governments in modern China poisons this whole discussion, but I’ve heard little about this in the press.
On the other hand, I can’t help but get mighty pissed off at the “facade of legality” crack at China’s judicial system. I don’t care who this dude is — I doubt he has the training or experience to make that comment with any authority. I’m no Jerome Cohen or anything, but my decade plus practicing law over here should count for something when I say that Danby is simply full of shit.
I do believe I’ve gotten my knickers in a twist over this.
Here are links to my two previous posts on this issue, here and here.
Final note: I acknowledge that Smith and other government officials have tempered their language and, in some cases, have backtracked to keep the Autralia-China relationship healthy. They’ve said some stupid things but have balanced the rhetoric. As usual, however, folks from other parts of the government have not been as diplomatic. Par for the course, I’m afraid.
Did you see Jerome Cohen’s article in the SCMP today? He compared American criminal procedure with Chinese criminal procedure in economic espionage cases, and he came down squarely on the side of Kevin Rudd “publicly warning the Chinese government that the world is watching how it handles the case of Rio Tinto.” Stern Hu is not even allowed to see a lawyer, and his lawyer is excluded from participating until the investigation is complete, plus a closed trial. That’s just some of the undue process Hu gets subjected to. Sounds like state secrets cases in China are a facade of legality. And it’s not like Hu was stealing information about spaceships.
As you yourself have duly noted, much of this would appear to be politicians simply going through the motions for the public. The days of Western imperialism and extraterritoriality are indeed over, and perhaps these individuals deserve to be tried in a Chinese court, under Chinese law.
I am not at all surprised, however, to find many non-Chinese and especially Westerners who undoubtedly believe their own legal systems superior to that of the Chinese, questioning China’s efforts to act as if it is business as usual. Being English, I would certainly choose the criminal justice system of England & Wales over that of any other nation. Especially one which might give me the death sentence for charges of corruption and/or bribery.
I know very little about the Chinese legal system, especially their criminal justice system, but perhaps a detailed comparison might be necessary before we condemn people for bemoaning the fates of their fellow countrymen. After all, regardless of whether you were guilty or not, would you prefer to be tried in a Chinese criminal court? Kept in a Chinese jail for several months before and during your trial?
Certainly these are valid comments, and I’m not setting myself up as an apologist for the Chinese criminal justice system.
That being said, the criticisms have arisen because a foreigner is in custody (and someone who works for a large multinational), so the politics just look atrocious. Jerome Cohen has been a constructive critic for many years, so he gets a pass. The Australian government, on the other hand, well, they are not covering themselves in glory here.
What’s the option here? Chinese criminal procedure should be changed just for this case, because a foreigner is involved? Should the foreigner be released, since the Chinese justice system is not up to par?
I don’t have the answer to those questions. If ultimately we are saying that because the system here is fundamentally flawed, we do not deem it acceptable to have foreigners subjected to it, then we are moving into very dangerous politically territory.
How exactly is the Australian government meant to react? Is it xenophobic to suggest that something is amiss when your leading exporter’s business team get arrested shortly after they turn down a Chinese offer? What would George W have done if China had arrested Unocal’s executives in China after they rejected the CNOC bid? I don’t think they would have shut up and let ‘due process’ take its course.
The reactions so far of the Australian government have been very restrained, at pains to say that they must let the Chinese legal process run its course, while trying to express the understandable sense of outrage felt by many here. Politicians like Barnaby Joyce are the opposition, NOT the Australian government.
The Australian government should be concerned and should be doing all they can in direct discussions with the Chinese government. What I am critical of are the public statements, which in my opinion do little or nothing to help the situation. Public comments are meant for public consumption, and usually this means that the officials making the statements want the public to know that they are “working the problem.”
Is this necessary? I don’t think so, and throwing this stuff out there just serves to piss off the Chinese. I would rather things be kept quiet and at the bilateral level.
As far as the opposition goes, of course there are agendas here. But government is government. You can discount political reactionaries, but to the extent that they get press, that stuff goes out there and has an effect on the discussion. Same thing goes on with the U.S. government which, by the way, would indeed react the exact same way as Australia’s government has done if the situation involved UNOCAL. Doesn’t excuse anything, though.
It seems like we have forgotten that these deals, in this industry, are rife with corruption. Let’s not leap to the conclusion that this was a political hit job on some poor, unsuspecting multinational employees. It is not outlandish to believe that these folks might in fact be guilty as charged.
I suspect Stern Hu has become a (deliberate) pawn in China’s game of push and shove with Australia over the latter’s resources. In the eyes of most Chinese I suspect he’s not an Australian citizen but a traitor to the Motherland.
The Chinese government failed in their bid to gain a larger slice of Australia pie, got their hair a little messed up in the price negotiations, and then Rio employees get arrested for stealing state secrets. What a damn surprise. It should be noted that China helped themselves to all thew computers in Rio’s offices at the time of the arrests. Very convenient for them.
I agree with Michael. This episode is a tough needle to thread for the Australian government, who have been very restrained in their language so far. It is the opposition have been blowing a bit more hot air on the issue.
Whatever the truth of Hu’s conduct, this has to be a worrying sign for foreign companies with offices in China. Detained for two weeks plus without charge because the investigation is ongoing? Voices of outrage ought to be a bit louder, I feel. However, China’s response would be, of course, to further delay matters in their classic strategy of drawing issues out ad infinitum to their own advantage.
I find it interesting that the reaction to all this is “Let’s complain more” and “Be afraid.”
I think more public complaints will be counterproductive politically. Foreign investors might be wise to be more afraid, however. The criminal justice system here is not warm and fuzzy and has serious shortcomings.
But why is no one coming out and saying to the foreign investment community that, in the face of so much uncertainty, your best strategy is to absolutely keep your nose clean while doing business over here? If one is afraid of unfair treatment, best to give the government as little opportunity as possible to bust you.
Instead, Rio Tinto assures us that they have a top-notch ethics policy (i.e., “of course we did nothing wrong”).
@ Stuart
“In the eyes of most Chinese I suspect he’s not an Australian citizen but a traitor to the Motherland. ”
—
How do you come to that perception? Sounds weird to me, a Chinese guy. He’s just an Australian, a foreigner! “traitor?” I’m surprised you used this word. He might be a criminal instead of a traitor, but the investigation is ongoing.
By the way, if the evidence proves Mr. Hu is guilty of bribery or whatever crime, I don’t mind people calling him ‘traitor’, simply because people hate corruption and bribery and don’t have any sympathy for such criminals.
I gotta agree with Stuart and Michael that we can’t impute the words of the opposition party to the government. In the US we have Republicans saying they want to engineer a Waterloo for our President. Politicians are capable of sleazy things that we can barely comprehend, and Rudd has made much of his background with China.
I didn’t read or infer anywhere in the body of the post that Australia considered it a political hit. What do we have here? It looks like Hu was paying bribes for market data for use by a private company, and he’s being charged with the theft of state secrets. That’s pretty absurd. Technically market data is a state secret, or “intelligence” as Beijing is classifying it. The judicial procedures for theft of state secrets in China is about as opaque as you can get. Dongfan Chung spent almost 30 years stealing information for the Chinese government about the US space program, and US military and civilian aircraft, and he was out on bail for 17 months and given the same trial any person in the US would be given. That also sounds absurd, but I’d be pissed if it went any other way.
This comparison is hopelessly flawed in that in each case the respective judicial systems have followed their appropriate procedures, which is to the credit of both. But if Beijing conducted this investigation and trial transparently then we could all see how justifiably Hu is being held. And transparent procedure speaks to the universal values of a natural rights dinosaur: life and liberty (and I’ll leave off the compromise one).
Also, I’ve seem some Chinese executives of two AIM listed UK companies (I can’t reveal the names) arrested for illegal operation and corruption by Chinese police in the past three years. They pleaded guilty and was convicted.
My question is simple: Why do you expect the politicians to make so much fuss over a should-be straightforward case? Why not do clean business in China?
Great to know that Rio Tinto has a stringent ethics policy. Stick to your policy, please.