Detained

What a terrible disaster! Stern Hu, an Australian business man, has been detained in China, accused of bribing and stealing state secrets. Rio Tinto is certainly on the leading edge of business with China - they can supply uranium for China nuclear ambitions, and use modern technology to exploit China's natural resources. Capitalism works a bit different in China, as the government officially meddles in business affairs (unlike the Western world, where this happens more occult).

The human rights situation in China looks quite dire. Organ trade, ban of organisations like Falun Gong, outbreeding Tibetans and strict internet censorship are just some topics Western politicians mention at home when defending their own fascist ways. Human rights make no money (unless you're AI, of course), and 'once business relations are established, the human rights situation can improve'. A fairy tale that has yet to come true somewhere.

Rio Tinto has all the hallmarks of a corporate giant. $81 billion in assets, listed in the Fortune 500, headquarters in Melbourne and London. The mining industry provided the fuel and material for industrialisation, traditionally with dreadful conditions for thew work force. Digging resources out of the Mother Earth's soil still takes many lives and shortened even more lifetimes. Unlike many other jobs in our modern world, miners still put their life at risk on a daily basis.

The common danger helped uniting miners, and many civil movements originated from this industry. But on a planet fractured into nations, an international operating entity can easily escape any improvement in one country. From a historic point of view, the mining industry is an essential component for industrialisation, and its mistreatment of its workers has contributed to some important improvements within society.

As mentioned, globalisation makes it possible to reduce the expense of 'worker rights' and 'safe workplaces' drastically. Rio Tinto does not break any local laws when they employ 10 year olds to wade barefoot through puddles of chemical solvents in their African mines - child labour supports maximising profits.

The public does not care too much about the corporate ethics of a mining company like Rio Tinto. Australian workers were paid well, and worked in quite safe environments. Miners were less visible than the blue collar workers in the corporate headquarters, being responsible of making numbers look good. Protests from the indigenous population about the mining sites could easily be muted, and friends in politics helped continuing Australia's genocide by all kind of 'interventions', removing human 'business obstacles'.

Which nicely segues into the second important area of the corporate ethics of a mining company, the mining sites themselves. The destruction of ecosystems and massive environmental pollution go hand in hand with mining, and sites of cultural importance are rarely spared. Indigenous people hardly stand a chance negotiating against a multi national company, especially when their government doesn't like them in first place.

If a 'civilised' country like Australia does not hesitate to mistreat their native people to help business, guess what happens in South America, Africa and Asia. Luckily, Rio Tinto mostly uses the term 'business ethics', in a similar way Dick Cheney talks about 'special interrogation techniques'. Human rights or environmental protection are not part of Rio Tinto's corporate agenda, they are aiming to make money for their shareholders.

"Business ethics' simply means if corruption, espionage and crime lower the total cost of operation, don't get caught. Don't forget to estimate the cost of getting caught (PR, more PR, bribery, coercion, eventual penalties) in this calculation.

Joel Bakan described corporations as psychopaths, and he made a good point. The structure of corporations allows otherwise ethically acting persons to withdraw from individual responsibility - corporate drones (and/or managers) act mainly in the shareholders interest. Shareholders want to see ROI (return of investment), or else the management gets fired.

Workers right, environmental and cultural concerns increase the cost of operation for a company like Rio Tinto, they directly oppose the shareholder interest. Stern Hu represented this company, and most likely did nothing unusual. Yet the Chinese government might interpret internationally usual business practises differently.

At least, some specific allegations have been made. These allegations sound probable to me, yet they might be entirely fabricated. Let's compare this to another case of detention of an Australian citizen, David Hicks.

Hicks was sold the US military in Afghanistan in December 2001, yet it took the US government three years to come up with some allegations. Considering the fact that the US presents itself as stronghold of justice and civil liberty, the 'evil' Chinese reacted still much faster. Rio Tinto complains that the Chinese law is hard to interpret for us, the US set up some special dictatorial legislation (the military commissions act of 2006) to deal with their ignorance for legal advances of the last 600 years or so.

Hicks and Hu were 'illegaly' detained, surrounded by fuzzy legal circumstances. One was tortured by a friendly, human rights loving and raping nation, without having broken any law. The other one might have broken the law (simply by doing business as usual), yet both Rudd and Turnbull have no problem taking his side. The politician's big heart for crooky business and business crooks comes as no surprise to me. (Mr. Hu, this is not meant personally.)

The drama hasn't ended yet. News corporations (no pun intended) will supply us with the next developments of this story. Rest assured, Rio Tinto will invest in looking good, innocent and 'business ethical'. Will the Socialist Alternative organise rallies to 'Free Stern Hu' ?