Monday, July 13, 2009

Getting China wrong

Guess what? Tomorrow's must-see conference, the 2009 China Update, is hosted by "The Rio Tinto - ANU China Partnership".

No joke. Check out the sponsorship notice at the top of the conference website.

John Garnaut's typically brilliant report from China in today's Herald and Age begins like this:

"WHEN Rio Tinto holds press events in China, its public relations firm sometimes hands out red envelopes of cash to Chinese journalists who are kind enough to turn up.

Well, doesn't every company in China do it?

No, the best multinational companies do not. And the best Chinese journalists don't accept those "expense" payments, either..."


Read the full thing

Let's see... Australia's AWB stooped to bribery and suffered the consequences, it is alleged that a subsidiary of our Reserve Bank also stopped to bribery and it is awaiting the consequences. Hasn't this taught firms such as Rio anything?