2nd UPDATE: Australia Still Urging China To Expedite Hu Case
September 03 2009 - 4:37AM
Dow Jones News
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Thursday that
short-term difficulties in the country's relationship with China
won't affect long-term trade between the two.
"We have a number of difficulties in the relationship with
China," Smith said on the sidelines of an industry conference.
The problems include the detention in China of Rio Tinto Ltd.
(RTP) executive and Australian citizen Stern Hu, Smith said.
"But the long-term beneficial nature of the relationship both to
China and Australia will in the end prevail over any of the
difficulties."
"We need to take a long-term view of our relationship and we
need to be patient," Smith said.
Australian officials continue to make representations to Chinese
authorities that Hu's case should be dealt with "expeditiously," he
said.
Australian consular officials will be allowed to visit Hu at the
"start of next month," under a pre-existing agreement between the
two countries that allows prisoner visits every 30 days, Smith
said.
Hu, the head of Rio Tinto's iron ore marketing unit in China,
was arrested in Shanghai in July and faces charges of bribery and
infringing on trade secrets.
Smith's comments came a day after the European Union Chamber of
Commerce in China stated in its annual position paper that its
member firms remain concerned about the opaque manner in which the
government is handling the Rio Tinto investigation.
Jiang Yu, spokeswoman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
said Thursday that China will deal with the Rio Tinto case
according to Chinese law and a China-Australia consular
agreement.
She said China's actions are "to safeguard the rule of law and
create a sound and fair commercial environment, which is in the
long-term interest of foreign companies in China."
Jiang, who was speaking in response to a reporter's questions at
a regular news briefing, reiterated that sound bilateral ties are
in the fundamental interest of both China and Australia.
She said she hopes Australia can join China in efforts to
safeguard overall bilateral cooperation by respecting and
accommodating each other's major concerns and properly handling
sensitive issues.
-By Stephen Bell, contributing to Dow Jones Newswires;
61-8-9244-4243; sgbell@bigpond.com
(J.R. Wu in Beijing contributed to this report.)