I argue in Socialist Alternative (www.sa.org.au) and on my blog (http://enpassant.com.au) that the Australian Government is being hypocritical about this arrest.  Rudd is about protecting Australian profits and that sees him vacillate on China between stern words (pun intended) to sycophancy.  The overall thrust of US imperialism is to both engage and encircle China and Australian imperialism reflects that approach and wants to entrap the US in the region to both further that and allow Australia's own adventures to prosper in 'our' region.  It appears to have done this successfully through getting the US to sign the ASEAN treaty of amity and cooperation.  Hillary Clinton summed it up when she said "The US is back."

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."

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In regard to the Hu affair, some people have asked me sarcastically: "Hey Gus since you know everything... what do you think about this Hu business?"

At the moment, you baiting subtle mugs, on this issue, I'll keep my own wise counsel to myself for good diplomatic reasons... and only say there are far too many parameters at play here from the fact the Chinese are stretching facts beyond credibility and they have inflated their "losses" by a factor of at least 10,000 — if ever they paid too much for iron ore... At that level of supply and demand, the price of things is only relevant to the buyer and the seller. They have no choice but to "deal" and go with it... A celebratory meal between seller and buyers should not attract the ire of the buyers' bosses. Market price has become somewhat irrelevant. No "real" intrinsic fixed value can be put on a fish when one is buying the said fish when one already own the fishing gear that caught the fish.

Furthermore the Chinese would have loaded the price of products they sell to us according to their own cost of fish in the first place. Thus if the Chinese paid to much for iron ore, we mugs would have paid to much for their products. Thus the ordinary Gus-Aussie is the mug at the end who pays too much for everything... All this explanation being rubbish of couse...

The last thing I'll say here is that the Chinese cannot get out of their position without loosing face. That's why they rattling... Then our (Aussie) government has to make a giant leap with organised protocol-ed apologies while not loosing money . 

China formally arrested an Australian citizen and three other employees of the British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto late Tuesday on suspicions of commercial bribery and trade secrets infringement in a case that has rocked the global steel industry and created a diplomatic uproar.

In a government filing, which was reported by the official Xinhua news agency, China appeared to back away from the much more serious charges of espionage or violation of the country’s state secrets law, which Beijing had earlier alleged and which had recently frayed relations between China and Australia.

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see comments above...

The red dust comes from the iron mines that surround the town — named for an American engineer credited with giving birth to Western Australia’s iron-ore industry — and that stand at the heart of an increasingly complicated relationship between Australia and China, the most voracious customer of this country’s minerals.

Rio Tinto, the Australian-British mining giant, rebuffed a large Chinese investment recently and agreed instead to merge its iron-ore operations with another Anglo-Australian mining company, BHP Billiton, the world’s largest. More recently, the Chinese government arrested four of Rio Tinto’s employees in its iron-ore operations in China, accusing them of commercial bribery and trade secrets infringement, although it backed away from the more serious charge of stealing state secrets.

The continuing boom here and in the rest of the Pilbara, as this region of Western Australia State is called, hints at the geopolitical importance of iron ore, the fundamental ingredient in making steel. The mines in the Pilbara date from the 1960s, when they began supplying Japan with the raw material it needed to build its cities and industries. That pattern has been repeated with China’s development and people here hope will be repeated again in several years with India’s.

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The key word here is "India"... Thus Gus obviously thought that one of the purpose of the Chineses buying Rio Tinto was to by-pass the market. They would know that the market for iron ore is likely to hot up some more, with India coming on line... And all the huffing and puffing in regard to the Hu affair is not going to make a hoot of difference to the price of fish — except the finger pointing by the Chinese government about Hu might (will) make the price of ore go up... Who knows...