China's Rio Tinto deal in peril

There are now well-founded doubts that the $19-billion US equity and bond deal China Aluminum (Chinalco) is offering the Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto will go ahead as that dread word "protectionism" is on everyone's lips.

Opposition to the deal in Australia has already become vocal as Rio Tinto investors and phone-in nationalists looked at the agreement which gives Chinalco, a Beijing state-owned company, 18 per cent of the mining company's equity, but apparently a disproportionately powerful voice on its various boards and policy committees.

There are two main strands to the opposition thinking.

One is that Australians should not be selling their birthright abroad -- selling the Chinese Rio Tinto's iron, copper and aluminum ore is fine, but control of the company is not.

The other is that while China is generally open to foreign investment, there are tight restrictions on overseas investment in the country's mining sector.

But two days before that, June 15, Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board is due to give its own report on the agreement and recommendations to the government's finance minister Wayne Swan.

Copyright and Exemption Declaration :¢ÙAll articles, pictures and videos that are marked with "China Aluminum Network" on this website are copyright and belong to China Aluminium Network (www.alu.com.cn). When transshipment, any media, website or individual must list the source from "China Aluminium Network (www.alu.com.cn)". We seek legal actions against anyone that disobey this. ¢ÚArticles that marked as copy from others are for transferring more information to readers, do not represent or endorse their opinions or accuracy and reliability. When other media, website or individuals copy from our website, must keep the source. Anyone that changes the articles' sources will hold the responsibilities for copyright and law problems. We also seek legal actions against anyone that disobey this. ¢ÛIf any articles copied by our website concern the copyright and other problems, please contact us within one week.