45 China pressured Australia's National Press Club to cancel Rebiya Kadeer's speech

(1) Uighur leader at Australia's National Press Club: don't 'take orders' from China
(2) China pressured Australia's National Press Club to cancel Rebiya Kadeer's speech
(3) Uighur 'plight similar to Tibet'
(4) University cancels Dalai Lama's degree - because of Chinese pressure?
(5) China shows its other, angry face
(6) Ramu Nickel mine in PNG:  Chinese workers imported in shipping containers, with 'comfort women'
(7) China's import of Chinese workers for overseas projects leads to clashes with locals
(8) China wants to buy Australian coal miner Felix Resources
(9) China coal bid to test investment review

(1) Uighur leader at Australia's National Press Club: don't 'take orders' from China

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hIi5GEONmzoi1UHbv-7zYYcDuCng

Kadeer says Australia shouldn't 'take orders' from China

(AFP) – August 11, 2009

CANBERRA — Exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer urged Australia Tuesday not to "take orders" from Asian giant China but warned a detained mining executive could be facing a show trial and lengthy jail term.

Kadeer, making a televised address to the National Press Club despite China's objections, said Australia should use its muscle in the resources sector to push for the release of Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu.

"Australia is a sovereign, democratic and free nation. Australia doesn't need to take orders from dictators from Beijing," she said.

"The Chinese government always makes it look like Australia and other Western democracies and trading partners need China more than China needs them, but it's exactly the opposite."

Kadeer was speaking after Australian officials made their second visit to Hu in a Shanghai detention centre following his July 5 arrest on allegations of stealing state secrets and causing China huge economic losses.

She said she was "very concerned" for Hu's welfare after her own experience in spending six years in a Chinese jail.

"What China does with people they don't like is charge them with all kinds of bogus charges and give them lengthy sentences after a closed show trial which lasts just a couple of minutes," she said.

"That's how it is in China -- I would hope that Australia and other countries could help free Mr. Hu."

Rio Tinto welcomed reports from consular officials that Hu was being well treated but said it remained "surprised and concerned" over his detention along with three Chinese colleagues.

"We are still not aware of any evidence that would support their detention," iron ore chief executive Sam Walsh said in a statement.

Australia earlier warned China to tone down its attempts to muzzle Kadeer, whom it accuses of stoking last month's unrest in the Xinjiang region, which left at least 197 dead.

Kadeer's visit has been strongly opposed by China, which protested after her visa was granted and also tried to block Saturday's screening of a documentary about her life, as well as Tuesday's address.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said he had told Chinese diplomats to behave "politely and appropriately" after Melbourne's lord mayor complained about attempts to stop the film, "10 Conditions of Love," being shown.

"As a consequence of that, Chinese officials were spoken to by the department of foreign affairs," Smith told public broadcaster ABC.

"All diplomats need to conduct themselves appropriately."

Kadeer said China's efforts had only earned publicity for the film, which was a sell-out and moved her "to tears."

"I deeply appreciate the support of the Chinese government, (without it) I could not have had this kind of publicity," she joked.

Kadeer was once a successful businesswoman in Xinjiang but was then jailed and has become a figurehead for the Uighur movement since her release in 2005.

The mainly Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang claim they have suffered political and religious persecution since Chinese troops "peacefully liberated" the vast region 60 years ago.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved

(2) China pressured Australia's National Press Club to cancel Rebiya Kadeer's speech

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25911152-7582,00.html

Call for press club ban: Chinese pressure media

EXCLUSIVE: Patrick Walters, National security editor | August 11, 2009

THE Chinese government tried to pressure the National Press Club into cancelling a nationally televised speech by Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, scheduled to take place today.

Political counsellor at the embassy Liu Jing met press club officials last week and requested the club withdraw the invitation to Ms Kadeer.

"Mr Liu said to us, 'You must withdraw the invitation to Ms Kadeer'. He was insistent but polite," a director of the club, who was present at the meeting, told The Australian.

He said Mr Liu had pointed out that the Chinese government believed it would be "regrettable" if bilateral relations were harmed by Ms Kadeer speaking at the club.

"We hope you will be able to give us some good news next week," Mr Liu told NPC directors. "We hope that if this speech were to go ahead, it would not be televised," he added.

The pressure to pull Ms Kadeer's press club speech comes as bilateral relations are being tested in the wake of the arrest of senior Rio executive Stern Hu on espionage charges. ...

The Australian understands that press club officials at last week's meeting told Mr Liu that the club's policy on nationally televised speeches remained consistent with past practice. Asked about her reaction to the latest pressure from Beijing to drop today's speaking engagement, Ms Kadeer told The Australian: "Australia is a democratic country. It's not a province of China.

"China cannot impose its authoritarian will on the whole world. Maybe China can impose its will on us and the Tibetans, but not the whole world."

On Saturday, Mr Reilly wrote to Chinese ambassador Zhang Junsai to reaffirm that today's address would take place as planned.

He also conveyed an invitation from the press club to "an appropriately senior representative of the Chinese government" to deliver a speech to the club on bilateral issues, including the detention in China of Mr Hu.

Ms Kadeer yesterday had an informal meeting with a small group of federal MPs from parliament's foreign affairs sub-committee and urged them to try to help her people and the World Uighur Congress, which she leads, to achieve a peaceful reconciliation with Beijing.

"We would like the Australian government to call on the Chinese government to allow an immediate and independent investigation into what happened on July 5," (when serious rioting broke out in Urumqi, the capital of the Uighur Autonomous Region, killing at least 197 people) Ms Kadeer told The Australian. ...

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown met Ms Kadeer yesterday and will host a screening of The 10 Conditions of Love in parliament this morning.

Senator Brown also plans to move a motion in support of Uighur self-determination in the Senate on Thursday.

(3) Uighur 'plight similar to Tibet'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8194550.stm

Page last updated at 09:21 GMT, Tuesday, 11 August 2009 10:21 UK

An exiled leader of China's Uighur ethnic minority, Rebiya Kadeer, has given a speech in Australia despite pressure from Chinese diplomats not to.

Speaking at Australia's National Press Club in Canberra, she compared the plight of her people to the Tibetans.

China says that Mrs Kadeer was behind ethnic unrest in July in Xinjiang region, home to the Uighur minority, in which at least 197 people died.

She denies being involved in the worst ethnic unrest in China for decades.

"The situation of Uighur people is very similar to the situation of the Tibetans," she said.

"We suffer the same suffering, under the same government, and it has been a long while that the Uighur people have not been able to raise our voice in the world as much as our Tibetan brothers did." ...

(4) University cancels Dalai Lama's degree - because of Chinese pressure?

University cancels Dalai Lama's degree

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/11/2652886.htm

Posted August 11, 2009 19:49:00

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown has questioned whether the Dalai Lama has been denied an Australian university honour because of Chinese pressure.

The Tibetan spiritual leader met the vice-chancellor of the University of Tasmania during an Australian tour in 2007.

He was to be offered an honorary doctorate when he visited Tasmania in December this year but that offer has since been withdrawn.

The University of Tasmania collects $30 million a year from Chinese students and Senator Brown is questioning whether the Dalai Lama's fight for Tibetan independence affected the decision.

"It's up to the university to say why the offer of an honorary degree has been withdrawn, if it has," he said.

"And who put pressure on them? Were they the recipient of messages or delegations from China? And if so, what was discussed?

"In other words, was there an element of blackmail involved? We all have a right to know."

The University of Tasmania says the issue was raised in a meeting with Chinese officials but it had already decided to withdraw its offer to the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama's fight for Tibetan independence has pitted him squarely against the Chinese Government.

(5) China shows its other, angry face

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/china-shows-its-other-angry-face-20090810-efjc.html?skin=text-only

Date: August 11 2009

Peter Hartcher

China has taken off the mask of friendship. In the past few months, its central government has decided to show Australia another face of China. It's a harsher vision of a possible future with the rising superpower of our region.

If there were any lingering doubt that we had entered a new phase, it was dispelled by the feverish claims published on the website of China's National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets.

In alleging Rio Tinto was involved in a six-year spying operation against China's steelworks, it accused the resources company of "winning over and buying off, prising out intelligence .. and gaining things by deceit''.

Six years, by the way, is the time in which iron ore prices have been rising. The previous two decades, when prices were falling, was just the free market, apparently. Only a conspiracy could cause prices to rise.

The most outlandish part of the story was the assertion that Rio's activities led China to pay $123 billion more for iron ore than it would have otherwise, a sum far larger than the total value of Rio sales to China in those years. "That means China gave the employer of those economic spies more than $123 billion for free, which is about 10 per cent of Australia's GDP," the piece argued.

When this was reported widely in the international media yesterday, the article, a long diatribe in Mandarin, was removed from the website. The reason is obvious. This material has nothing to do with criminal jurisprudence. It is a venomous, nationalistic rant.

It exposes the motivation, or at the very least the prejudices, of the National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets, the authority conducting the prosecution of Stern Hu and his three Rio colleagues who have now been held in China for four weeks without charge. This is now, undeniably, a political case.

We already know what it's like to live in the new China growth zone. That was all the exuberant news about resource prices. Now Beijing is instructing us in what it might feel like to live in the China political zone as well.

Together with the other evidence - Beijing's hamfisted efforts to ban a film about its Uighur minority at the Melbourne Film Festival, its angry campaign to block a visit to Australia by the exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, its chilliness in rebuffing the Rudd Government over the Stern Hu case - this is a clear sign that the Chinese regime has consciously decided to take a tougher line with Australia.

Why? First, Australia displeased Beijing. The principal reason for Chinese interest in Australia is its resources. When the big state-owned firm Chinalco wanted to increase its share in the world-class minerals assets of Rio in a $25 billion deal, Beijing was unhappy at the political wariness with which it was greeted in Canberra.

It would have been the biggest overseas acquisition that communist China had ever made.

The Australian Government did not block the deal. Indeed, it said repeatedly Chinese investment was welcome. But Canberra did put conditions on smaller takeovers of other resource assets by Chinese state-owned companies. This entrenched a principle, and it boded ill for the Chinalco deal.

The Opposition's Peter Costello was outspoken in expressing reservations about the Chinalco bid. Rio, reading the political climate, abandoned the deal.

China's leaders seem to have decided to make this rebuff an opportunity to teach a lesson to Rio, to Australia, and anyone else watching. This is the second dimension to China's angry new attitude.

It's an old Chinese folk saying - "kill the chicken to scare the monkey." In other words, you punish the weaker enemy to frighten the stronger. With a new president in the White House and a heightened mood of protectionism in the US Congress, is Beijing using Australia as the chicken to scare the American monkey?

A China specialist at Canterbury University in New Zealand, Anne-Marie Brady, says: "I think there is clearly a new approach to dealing with Australia - it could be sending a message to the US or to other countries in general."

The US has noticed. The State Department official responsible for Asia policy, Kurt Campbell, told the Herald recently: "I know China is more complicated now in Australian politics. In many respects, Australia is mimicking the US in that the image of China stirs great hopes and some anxieties. And that's exactly the way it is in the US."

This is new. Until now it had all been about the hopes, with few anxieties. Brady explains that, after 1989, China put the US in a category of one. With most of the rest of the world, Beijing followed the principle of "looking for things in common and letting disputed points lie". This was precisely its formula for Australia and the Howard government reciprocated.

But with America, Beijing took a harder line according to the principle of "looking for commonalities and facing up to differences". What has changed this year is that Beijing has moved Australia into the same category. "I think that's what China is doing to Australia now," Brady says.

This is a powerful wake-up call for Australia. The China we must live with is not the China we thought we were dealing with.

Peter Hartcher is the Herald'sinternational editor.

(6) Ramu Nickel mine in PNG:  Chinese workers imported in shipping containers, with 'comfort women'

http://www.newint.org/features/2009/06/01/keynote-china/

June 2009 • Issue 423

Made in China

China has merged capitalism with communism to form a powerful new economic system. All countries now feel its impact. Chris Richards reports from the South Pacific.

The mango tree spreads large and lush. Standing at the centre of this village, it has pride of place. Huts on stilts surround it. Under its branches, protected from the sun, the villagers of Lalok in Papua New Guinea (PNG) collect to talk and make decisions together. Like the tree, their community is strong – democracy is growing.

It looks like paradise here. Children run across the beach laughing to greet our six-metre dinghy after its sea-crossing. Tall palm trees swaying softly on the edge of the beach rim the rainforest. Yet living in paradise has its price.

The villagers miss the opportunities that education could bring. They want to increase their income by selling their cocoa and coconuts, bamboo and bananas, taro and yams. They want the longer life that doctors can offer. A road could provide the missing link to schools, hospitals and markets. It need not be long – it is only around 35 kilometres to Madang, the regional capital. And, says the Coastal Landowners Association Chairperson, John Yong Botti, the Chinese should pay to build it.

The other villagers, seated in a circle around the mango tree, nod in agreement. It is only fair. Over the next 20 years the Chinese plan to take significant resource wealth from this part of PNG. The $1.37 billion Ramu Nickel mine will produce 31,150 tonnes of nickel and 3,300 tonnes of cobalt each year for the next 20 years.1 From the mine-site in Kurumbukari, they will send the ore down a 135-kilometre pipeline to a processing plant on the coast, then load it on ships bound for China.

Unbalanced trade

This is China's largest investment in the South Pacific, just one in a global empire of mining ventures feeding its appetite for growth. As the world's biggest consumer of stainless steel (using more than the US and Japan combined) nickel alloy is critical. Nickel is also a key component of rechargeable battery systems used in electronics, power tools and transport – important as the share of China's exports shift from textiles, clothes and shoes to more profitable hi-tech products.

For Papua New Guinea, the Ramu Nickel venture is its biggest construction project, adding an estimated eight to ten per cent to the national economy every year.2

But for the people of Lalok it's hard to see the benefits. The pipeline passes over their land, cutting through fruit trees and vegetable crops. Each clan has been paid up to 400 kina ($146), but it is not enough. 'How much compensation should be given for this?' asks John Yong Botti as he points to the mango tree. 'They are giving a lousy 10 to 20 kina ($3.66 to $7.32). If the mango tree is there, we will continue to sell the fruit and get the money. But if the tree goes, that income goes with it.'

As they talk in the sunshine, it is clear that they have been left in the dark. When they raise their concerns with the mining companies, they are told to ask the Government. But the Government isn't answering.

Then there are the environmental concerns. I'm no expert but the waste disposal method proposed by the project's managers sounds laughable. After the nickel and cobalt are processed, five million tonnes of tailing waste each year will be siphoned into pristine Astrolabe Bay. Sinking to a depth of 150 metres, the exposed waste will lie in a deep ocean basin. A report commissioned by the Mineral Policy Institute in Sydney, Australia, concluded: 'While it is remotely possible that the discharge of 100 million tonnes of mine tailings into Astrolabe Bay may have no impact at all, this is exceedingly unlikely.' Following public outcry, governments have commissioned another study to make this system safer. But in an area prone to earthquakes and high seas, locals fear that whatever improvements are made the waste will find its way to their shores. The impact on marine life – and therefore on human health – could be catastrophic; fish are a major source of protein for more than 80,000 Papua New Guineans whose lives depend on the sea.3

Come with me and see, says Letani Robin, a community facilitator for Lalok village.

Red smiles

Letani takes me by boat to the end of the pipeline at Basamuk, where the processing plants are being built. As we walk up the road from the once beautiful coastline, the dirt road disappears under a curtain of limestone dust each time a truck goes by. Coughing, Letani worries for the workers and local residents. By 2002, an estimated one million Chinese were suffering pneumoconiosis – the debilitating work-related lung disease caused by the inhalation of dusts.4 This problem is being exported to Basamuk's shores.

Cultures are colliding here. To the outrage of the people of PNG, media and locals report that Chinese workers for the Ramu project have been brought into the country illegally in shipping containers along with 'comfort women' to service them. Standing at the main gate of the workers' compound, we read the sign of 'welcome'– the company rules for all those who pass through its gates. No alcohol. No drugs. No women. No families. No littering. No removing company property. No betelnut. Betelnut is a staple for PNG people. Once the green nut is peeled and chewed it turns the mouth, lips and teeth red. 'It makes us feel happy and tell stories,' explains Letani.

Red is the colour of health, happiness and prosperity in China. I wonder what the Chinese here make of the red smiles of welcome from people like Ruth Kapi. Ruth is a storeholder at the Basamuk market. She's married to a landowner but her relatives work here, building the factories for the nickel to be processed. When I ask her about the benefits of the plant, she strides off, waving me to follow. 'They employ our people doing menial work for 170 kina ($61.90) a fortnight,' she scoffs. And – despite promises to the contrary2 – these locals have not been hired to do the more lucrative contract work. The equipment, materials and pipelines used on the site are all stamped 'Made in China'.

Ruth points to the sides of what looks like a pit and explains that it used to be a mountain. She takes us to the flats where the mountain's rocks are now being crushed to make concrete blocks for factory walls. It gives the phrase 'taking their land' new meaning. Ruth points to the crusher and explains how the machine has eaten the leg of one of her relatives. He now has a stump below the knee. The company paid him 500 kina ($182) compensation.

Then she shows us the factory foundations – acres and acres of steel frames. The Chinese workers are uniformed and hard-hatted. The PNG workers mix concrete by hand to bolster a steep retaining wall. They wear no protective gear. When I ask Ruth why, she starts laughing with the workers below, throwing betelnuts at them in a makeshift game of catch.

'So what is in all this for the people of PNG?' I ask Letani. He says that in exchange for its riches, PNG wants tangible returns – roads, bridges, infrastructure. Instead he points to the local workers' housing, row upon row of pre-fabricated dormitories, easily disassembled to take away. The only economic opportunity that remains for the people is to be paid a reasonable price for their land and resources. There's no sign of this happening.

Collateral damage

Clan leaders from Kunumbukari – where the resources will be prised from the ground – stand to lose everything to this mine: their land; the drinking water, fish, prawns and turtles in the river; and the birds of paradise, wild boar and vast source of natural medicines in the rainforest surrounding it. Yet the Land Titles Commissioner – appointed four years ago by the Government to validate and prioritize claims – has just started to hear evidence from the seven clans claiming ownership of the land where the mine is situated.

Only a handful of landowners have been given access to the Memorandum of Agreement signed in 2000, which sets out their rights. They are to receive 65 per cent of all government royalties.5 But 65 per cent of nothing is still nothing. China Metallurgical Construction Corporation (MCC), one of the largest and most profitable of China's state-owned enterprises – together with three Chinese steel companies – effectively own 85 per cent of Ramu Nickel. Rather than sell the minerals on the market, the owners may simply absorb them into their own production. No revenues means no royalties.

Government sell-out

The Memorandum of Agreement commits the Chinese to contributing an astonishingly low $731,000 to local infrastructure. While the companies say publicly they will spend $2.93 million2, this is still a pittance considering the 20-year lifespan of the project. How many schools and hospitals can be built with an amount like this? Taxing the Ramu Nickel project could have produced a firm support for infrastructure funding. But in addition to receiving a 10-year income tax holiday, the project is exempt from a range of other taxes – even the excise on fuel has been waived.6 And what will local landowners think when they read that the PNG Government – not Ramu Nickel – has signed up to build the all-important road from Basamuk to Madang? With no taxes from the mine, how will the Government fund the route? ...

   1. 'Highlands reports Ramu is making good progress', PNG Resources, Issue 3, 2008.
   2. Ramu NiCo Management Ltd, Ramu Nickel Project, paper presented to the 10th Papua New Guinea Mining and Petroleum Investment Conference, 1 December 2008. ...

(7) China's import of Chinese workers for overseas projects leads to clashes with locals

China's expats 'could harm trade plans'

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/11/2652702.htm?section=world

By Stephanie March for Radio Australia

Posted August 11, 2009 15:50:00
Updated August 11, 2009 15:49:00

Difficulties in handling its citizens' relationships with other peoples could harm China's efforts to establish international trade and strategic links, experts say.

Violence involving Chinese entrepreneurs and workers has been seen from the Pacific to North Africa and South America in recent years.

In Algeria earlier this month, 10 people were injured when dozens of Chinese migrant workers clashed with African business owners in a dispute about a car park.

Over the past 10 years, Chinese trade with Africa has gone from $US10 billion to $106 billion.

Beijing funds numerous vital infrastructure projects in the poverty-stricken continent and has been praised for helping some countries maintain positive growth rates while others across the globe are slipping into recession.

But misunderstandings between newly established Chinese communities and Africans threaten these positive aspects of the relationship.

Risk analyst and former CIA official Scott Harrison is the head of Pacific Strategies and Assessments in Hong Kong and he warns the problem will not go away in a hurry.

"It's kind of a tinder box, which I think will continue to raise its ugly head from time to time until the Chinese get smarter and more savvy about dealing globally," he said.

Chinese businesses in Tonga, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea have also been the targets of violence - allegedly politically motivated - in the past few years.

Mr Harrison says it is likely to become more of a problem in other parts of the world.

"The Chinese have invested a great deal of time and effort and money in Africa, increasingly in Latin America," he told Radio Australia's Connect Asia.

"And they have grown in significance because they come with open arms, few restrictions, they are willing to pay bribes and kickbacks where others aren't."

A former professor of work organisation at RMIT University in Melbourne, Dr Mike Berrell, says the rapid movement of Chinese workers to Africa means neither side has had adequate time to become culturally aware of the other.

"In China, there will be a lot of people coming from the rural areas who will be going overseas because that is where the job opportunities are," he said.

"But it is those type of people who have had even less contact with foreigners in China, so that escalates the problem of cultural understanding."

In a country like Algeria, where seven out of 10 people over the age of 30 are unemployed, analysts say locals resent the 35,000 Chinese migrants who have jobs or run businesses.

"They are very xenophobic, they tend to be inward-looking and rely exclusively on themselves rather than outsiders," Mr Harrison said.

"So I think that foreign countries that have not had a great deal of exposure to China see this as arrogance."

But he says if these misunderstandings are not dealt with they could threaten what has until now been a mutually beneficial relationship.

(8) China wants to buy Australian coal miner Felix Resources

Signals from China shake confidence

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25910728-5001641,00.html

Matthew Stevens | August 11, 2009

THE juxtaposition of the latest news flows from China yesterday was as excruciatingly instructive as it was politically fraught.

On the one hand we have China Inc reported to be closing on its biggest single plunge into the Australian resources sector.

On the other, we have the latest outburst of angry intimidation of the seaborne iron ore industry by (almost official) China, as the rhetorical sweep of the allegations against the Rio Tinto four is amplified to 11 on the Cold War dial.

The local investment in question is a potential bid for Felix Resources. It is one of that class of pocket battleships in the Australian coal industry, boasting control of some of the better mines in the Hunter and Bowen basins and a share of Newcastle's second coal terminal operator, the BHP Billiton-led NCIG consortium.

Felix sought suspension from trading on ASX yesterday in the wake of apparently informed speculation that Yanzhou Coal Mining Company was close to delivering a bid around the $3 billion mark for the Australian.

The talk is Yanzhou, an associate of China's fourth-biggest coal producer, could offer up to $20 a share for Felix, which looks pretty good given the share price was resting at $16.90 a pop when Felix called a halt yesterday.

The other thing to note here is that, given Felix's managing director, chairman and one other director collectively own nigh on 50 per cent of the business, you'd reckon if Yanzhou's bid lobs, then it is going to, at very least, deliver control of the business to China Inc.

Given, of course, Yanzhou is granted the indulgence of the federal Treasurer who, courtesy the foreign investment rules, has the final call on China Inc's latest pitch for a slice of Australia's resources action.

Yanzhou is one of the more interesting of China's operators. It was an early mover into international equity markets, listing in Hong Kong, New York and Shanghai, in that order, over 1998. Its controlling shareholder is Yankuang Group Corporation and it, in turn, is controlled by the People's Republic of China. It is, in short, an SOE (state-owned enterprise).

Which means there will be, inevitably and quite understandably, opinion aplenty that would encourage the Treasurer to block this deal. At the very least, you would expect pressure for the Treasurer to use any approval process for Chinese investment as some sort of leverage in the dark and apparently vengeful Stern Hu affair.

These are temptations the Treasurer should, on balance, try mightily to avoid. To do anything but contemplate the anticipated offer from Yanzhou on anything but the expressed FIRB national interest guidelines would be to reject the Treasurer's case-by-case commitment and be a step away from transparent, dispassionate process.

Mind you, these are strange days indeed for those of us who advocate Australia's ready and open embrace of Chinese investment flows as being a natural extension of our expanding trade relationship, a sound pathway to future national prosperity and, potentially, a means of fertilising the seeds of open economy in China.

But the miserable progress of the Hu affair, as highlighted again by the most recent unfathomable commentary emerging from China over the weekend, has strained the confidence of even the most ardent of the PRC supporters. ...

(9) China coal bid to test investment review

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/11/2652667.htm

By finance reporter Sue Lannin for The World Today

Posted August 11, 2009 15:16:00

China's fourth biggest coal producer is set to bid for Queensland coal miner, Felix Resources.

The potential deal is the biggest involving an Australian firm and a Chinese state-owned company since Chinalco's failed bid to double its stake in Rio Tinto.

And some analysts are advising that the Federal Government should think carefully before it allows a Beijing-backed company to control an Australian miner.

Felix Resources owns coal mines in Queensland and New South Wales. For more than a year it has been in talks with Yanzhou Coal. ...