the secret

the secret

Murky State Secrets Laws At Issue in Rio Tinto Case,

The arrest of four Rio Tinto employees in China on suspicion of espionage raises familiarly troubling concerns about China’s legal system and its murky state secrets laws.

The four Shanghai-based employees arrested include Stern Hu, the general manager of Rio Tinto’s Shanghai office, who is an Australian citizen, as well as three PRC nationals. Shanghai’s state security bureau said they were arrested for allegedly stealing “state secrets,” according to this brief Xinhua report.

On Thursday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the case would be handled “according to the law,” Xinhur reports. Qin added that the charges were supported by evidence that he didn’t specify, according to AFP. “Competent authorities have sufficient evidence to prove that they have stolen state secrets and have caused huge loss to China’s economic interest and security,” he said.

But given the broad sweep of China’s state secrets laws, it may be difficult to ever know what are the relevant law and evidence.