Do unto others

I noticed a report overnight that since 2006 more than 50 people have been prosecuted in the United States for allegedly transporting restricted technology, stealing trade secrets or conducting business espionage for China. The big difference between many of these cases and the Rio Tinto affair is that many of the US prosecutions involved military data.

Meanwhile a little more information continues to come out about the case against the Rio Tinto quarter with this morning’s China Daily story putting it into the context of the “chaotic” state of the country’s steel industry with disorderly competition among producers causing unnecessarily high prices.

The paper says the government has instituted a three year moratorium on applications to expand or start new steel projects.

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