Looks like there are some sour grapes from the collapse of the Rio Tinto-Chinese deal:
Four employees of multinational miner Rio Tinto are being held in China on suspicion of espionage, an Australian government minister has said…The incident comes amid high-stakes negotiations between the Anglo-Australian miner and China over lucrative iron ore contracts. The incident threatens to cause a diplomatic headache for Australia, which relies heavily on trade with China…Relations between the company and the Chinese became strained last month when it backed out of a $195bn deal with the state-owned Chinalco, opting for a rights issue and joint venture with local rival BHP Billiton instead.
The claim is that the Rio Tinto personnel were ‘stealing state secrets.’