China secrets laws leave Rio few options

By Lucy Hornby and Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING (Reuters) - The options for Australian miner Rio Tinto, or indeed anyone, to help four employees detained in a Chinese state secrets investigation are limited, lawyers say, as laws leave great latitude to investigators and prosecutors.

Under China's sweeping laws, the health and even the birthdays of the current leadership are considered state secrets.

Almost anything else can be classed as secret, especially economic data, as China moves from a system where everything once belonged to the state to the current free-for-all where everyone scrambles for any advantage they can get.

Stern Hu, an Australian citizen, and three Chinese colleagues were detained this month for stealing state secrets to aid Rio in price negotiations for iron ore, which is used in steelmaking. At least one Chinese steel executive is also detained and the probe has reached many of the largest mills.

The murkiness of state secret laws puts foreign investors potentially at risk when dealing with state-owned entities and potentially sensitive economic information.

Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Wednesday the world was watching the case and warned significant economic interests are at stake.

The case has also raised concerns about rights under China's legal system that are more commonly heard from human rights activists than from businessmen.

"This case makes as clear as any does that business people also have human rights," said Jerome Cohen, a professor at New York University School of Law. "They ignore at their peril what are perceived as purely human rights cases, since, as this case illustrates, they can be next."