When Rio Tinto Met China’s Iron Hand
In 2010, four employees of the mining giant were jailed and accused of stealing commercial secrets. Today, the company is more reliant on China than ever.
For eight years, Stern Hu rose every morning at 6 a.m. in Qingpu Prison near Shanghai. He and the dozen men who shared his cell would blearily pull on their blue-and-white-striped uniforms and line up in front of their bunks for the day’s first duty: greeting the guards. “Good morning, officer!” they’d shout. “Thank you for taking care of us, officer!”
Everyone in Brigade No. 8, the foreign prisoners unit, knew Hu. The quiet 61-year-old stood a head taller than the rest. Chinese-born, with an Australian passport and a shock of white hair, he’d been a star at Rio Tinto Group, one of the world’s largest mining companies, before being sent to prison in 2010 for stealing trade secrets and taking bribes. The Chinese government said his actions had cost the country’s steel industry as much as $100 billion.
To the members of Eight Brigade, Hu was also the guy who ran the library. After a breakfast of rice gruel with a spoonful of pickled vegetables, he’d take his post at a small desk next to some bookshelves at one end of the common room. He was supposed to keep track of who borrowed the books, but a former fellow convict says he let people do as they pleased. Most of his day was spent translating things for the guards. At 9 p.m., when the automatic lock on his cell door clanged shut, he’d lie on a thin mattress and listen to his bunkmates snore or cry out in their sleep.
Hu also completed self-denunciation classes, writing out long scripts apologizing for his actions. His reward for this, combined with his library service and reputation for good behavior, was to have his sentence reduced from 10 years to eight. On July 4, Hu, one of the most senior Western executives to see the inside of a Chinese prison, was set free.
As Rio Tinto’s chief representative in Shanghai, Hu had once helped the company ride China’s economic miracle to record profits. Hundreds of millions of tons of iron ore, supplied by Rio and sold by Hu, were forged into steel for cars, bridges, and skyscrapers. Then, in 2009, the relationship soured, and Hu and three of his colleagues were arrested as part of what highly placed sources describe as a targeted campaign—one they say involved a major hacking operation and cost the company more than $1 billion.
What happened to Rio has never been reported in depth. The company declined to comment for this article, and the Chinese government denied any knowledge of a targeted campaign. Over the course of three years, however, more than 20 sources—including current and former government and intelligence officials, current and former Rio Tinto employees and executives, and private security consultants—revealed details of Hu’s incarceration, the company’s interactions with Chinese officials, and the hacking allegations. They asked not to be identified because of the matter’s sensitivity. Many said the experience had been unforgettable, even traumatic. One former executive called it the most nightmarish period of his career. Taken together, their accounts portray one of the first and most devastating instances of China’s now-famous hackers spying on a Western corporation, and a cautionary tale about the country’s ability to influence global trade.
Sixty years ago, Mao Zedong predicted China would become the world’s top steel producer. His plan to have rural communes build thousands of humble “backyard” furnaces produced some memorable propaganda but little steel worthy of the name. At the start of the 1950s, annual output in China was about 160,000 tons, sufficient for a few skyscrapers. But after economic reforms opened production to the private sector, the figure rose steeply. By 2003 the country was churning out 200 million tons of steel a year, enough to erect 3,000 Empire State Buildings.
This boom took place even though China has little quality iron ore, which is superheated, purified, and mixed with oxygen to make steel. Instead, it relied on a handful of exporters, especially Rio Tinto. Formed in 1873 by London financiers seeking to buy the Rio Tinto copper mines from the Spanish government, the company grew into an international conglomerate with operations in Africa and the U.S.—an apex predator of mineral deposits, selling everything from diamonds to talc. Its transformation was secured in 1966 by the opening of an iron ore mine in the Pilbara, a remote region of northern Australia where the dirt itself is the color of rusted metal.
By tradition, iron ore markets were orderly and only modestly lucrative. The biggest buyers and sellers in each region negotiated the price annually. This worked fine during the 1990s, when Japanese mills were the biggest customers and the price held steady at $10 to $15 per ton. But Chinese demand changed everything. In 2005 the global benchmark price doubled. When Rio sent negotiators to China to hammer out a deal, they found something very different from the market in Japan.
China by then had some 4,000 steelmakers, from state-owned behemoths to scrappy family-owned mills. These ore buyers, it turned out, were acting like traders, snapping up shipments under one-year contracts and flipping them for a quick gain on the open market. Word spread among Rio executives that the son of iron ore head Sam Walsh had been approached in Australia, where he was working for a separate business. A Chinese classmate from his MBA program sat down in his office and offered the market price, plus a few million dollars, if he could arrange for a Rio shipment to be sent to a particular port. The offer was declined.
Throughout the mid-2000s, 2-kilometer-long trains loaded with iron ore rumbled to the Australian coast to fill cargo ships headed for Qingdao and Tangshan. In August 2006, Rio held celebrations at its global offices to mark 40 years of exports from the Pilbara. A marketing executive named Stern Hu arranged a fireworks display over Shanghai’s Bund waterfront district, watching in awe as the pyrotechnics danced with the skyline’s neon glow. That year, Rio announced a record second-half profit, driven, in part, by $1.8 billion in sales to China. But a crisis was coming that would threaten the company’s existence.
In May 2007, Tom Albanese became Rio’s chief executive officer. A New Jersey native, he’d gone to college in Alaska so he could devote his spare time to mountain climbing; he spent his school holidays carrying rocks down slopes for geologists. When he first started working for Rio in the ’90s, he turned up at its headquarters in London’s Aldermanbury Square wearing his best Alaskan jacket, a bold plaid. He was directed to the nearest tailor.
Within months of Albanese’s appointment as CEO, rumors began to circulate that Rio’s biggest rival, BHP Billiton Ltd., was planning a takeover bid. In November the talk became reality with a $150 billion offer, then the largest in corporate history. Rio rejected BHP’s overtures, the bid turned hostile, and Albanese’s focus shifted to survival.
Albanese in Beijing, March 2010.PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY 731; PHOTOGRAPHER: FENG LI/REUTERS
A few months later, he was on a monthly call with about 100 employees when news flashed on computer screens that state-owned Aluminum Corp. of China, known as Chinalco, had staged an overnight raid on Rio’s shares. Without warning, the Chinese government had effectively acquired 9 percent of the company’s stock and become its biggest investor. The move was widely seen as an attempt to stop BHP’s takeover, lest the combined entity choke Chinese factories in a monopolistic grip. (Chinalco didn’t respond to a faxed request for comment.) That same afternoon, Albanese and another executive met Chinalco President Xiao Yaqing at Rio’s headquarters. After some stiff handshakes, Albanese welcomed Xiao to the company. Anyone who could help ward off BHP was a friend.
Around the same time as the Chinalco raid, however, Rio executives noticed their computers were acting strangely. Keyboard commands were taking a long time to register onscreen. Emails opened and closed by themselves. Alarmed, Rio’s board contacted MI5, Britain’s domestic spying agency.
The security service didn’t seem interested at first. Rio sold metal and rocks. But a few weeks later, according to two people familiar with the conversation, a company representative was summoned to an unmarked building near London Bridge. He was asked to surrender his phone, belt, and watch. Then he went upstairs to meet a man who didn’t provide his name.
Your communications are insecure, the official said.
What does that mean? the employee asked, incredulous. Data? Emails? Phone calls? Text messages?
Yes, the official replied. Six sovereign states can see them, he specified.
I presume you’re one, the employee said.
Most of the watchers are benevolent forces, the official responded, but you really need to worry about the Chinese.
MI5 recommended that Rio hire a British consultant. The company considered overhauling its IT infrastructure, but ultimately opted for what a government official describes as “whack-a-mole” fixes, such as using burner mobile phones. For discussions about the BHP bid, Rio executives decided to meet deep inside headquarters, in a windowless room dubbed “the bunker,” to prevent outsiders from listening in by shining a laser against a windowpane and measuring the vibrations. They also used a system of code names. Rio Tinto was referred to as Robert. BHP was William. The takeover defense was Manchester.
Only a small number of executives and board members were told that Chinese hackers had comprehensively breached Rio’s systems. The company’s attention was focused on the more immediate problem of the takeover bid, which ended in late 2008 because of another crisis: the string of bank collapses that triggered a credit squeeze and spread through the global financial system. For a time, Chinese steelmakers stopped buying iron ore altogether. Some even breached their contracts by refusing to take shipments. Albanese and his colleagues spent that Christmas season trying to keep the company afloat while carrying $40 billion in debt. They flew around the world, into airports that seemed eerily empty, firing miners and sending thousands of employees home early for the holidays. Dozens of tankers sat parked off the Australian coast with nowhere to go.
Rio soon concocted two plans to escape the turmoil. Either it would go to the market and raise capital (code name: Glasgow) or it would get a bailout from Chinalco in return for a stake in key assets (code name: Colleen). Colleen won. On Feb. 12, 2009, Albanese signed an agreement with Chinalco for $19.5 billion in cash and convertible bonds. Rio’s shares swiftly fell, as non-Chinese shareholders complained they were being stiffed, and Australian lawmakers fretted about Beijing’s involvement in the country’s mines.
The uproar continued even as China announced a stimulus package, worth about $585 billion, that would jolt the iron ore market to life. Faced with this opposition, Rio’s chairman, Jan du Plessis, blinked. In June the company announced it was scrapping the Chinalco deal and issuing new shares instead—Glasgow, after all. Publicly, the Chinese were diplomatic. Privately, they were furious. Chinalco broke off contact with Rio, its executives refusing even to answer the phone.
Tensions or not, Chinese mills still needed raw materials, and Rio still needed customers. Predictably, the 2009 iron ore price negotiations hadn’t been going well. The steelmakers were being represented by the China Iron & Steel Association, a trade group with close links to the government. CISA had criticized Rio in the past, with one of its leaders saying, “Their brains are bloated, and their heads of full of water.” Rio’s negotiators, for their part, saw the head of CISA, Shan Shanghua, as a belligerent Communist Party hack.
In May, people familiar with the discussions say, Shan summoned the negotiators to CISA’s headquarters in Beijing, where he delivered a blunt message. “I will tell you what the price is going to be,” one source recalls him saying. “I will tell you how many tons we will get. Once you have accepted that, the deal is done.” The negotiators thanked him and walked out. (Shan, who was jailed in 2014 on unrelated corruption charges, couldn’t be reached. CISA officials declined to comment.)
Having been abandoned by Chinese customers during the financial crisis and with market prices beginning to rise, Rio needed to bounce back. In late June several executives met at the five-star Island Shangri-La hotel in Hong Kong. The subject: What to do about China?
Among those assembled was Hu. A graduate of Peking University, he’d become an Australian citizen in the 1990s while working for a tech company there. After joining Rio as a sales rep in 1996, he rose quickly through the ranks. His job in China was to meet with potential customers, sign them up, and manage supply contracts. Smooth and elegantly dressed, he was as comfortable dealing with the country’s biggest steelmakers as he was with his bosses in Melbourne and London.
Hu and the others spent a day and a night at the Shangri-La, without taking any special security precautions. They drew up a list of Chinese producers and divided them into the “good, the bad, and the ugly,” based on how fully they’d honored their contracts during the credit crunch. The team decided to cancel long-term contracts for the worst offenders and move others from one-year to three-month deals. Should demand and prices continue to rise, the move would cost Chinese buyers hundreds of millions of dollars.
Hu was sent back to Shanghai to refine the proposal for presentation to Rio’s executive committee. But a few days after he returned, on July 5, agents from the Shanghai bureau of the ministry of state security, whose aegis includes espionage, appeared at the company’s offices waving search warrants. The agents moved methodically into the workspaces of four employees, removing documents, computer disks, memory sticks, and laptops, leaving a signed receipt for each item they took.
That morning, the ministry also raided Hu’s villa in a wealthy Shanghai suburb, arresting him and removing files and electronic devices. The three other employees whose offices had been searched, all Chinese citizens who reported to Hu, were picked up at home. Soon, Rio’s global executive team was receiving urgent phone calls about the arrests, but no one had a clue what was going on. China wouldn’t even say where the four were being held because, Australian officials were told, the arrests were a matter of national security.
Only on July 8 did the Australian Consulate report that Hu had been arrested on suspicion of bribery and acquiring state secrets. Rio’s executives didn’t know what that might mean, save one thing: If Hu was convicted, he could face the death penalty.
Confronted with the opacity of the Chinese justice system, Hu’s colleagues also had to ask themselves what they knew of him. Publicly, Walsh, the head of the iron ore unit, told the media that the bribery charges were unfounded and that the company’s employees “acted at all times with integrity and in accordance with Rio’s strict and publicly stated code of ethical behavior.” Privately, executives had to wonder if Hu could have done what he was accused of doing. They knew he was married, with kids and a nice house, and that he was a classically trained violinist and teetotaler who drank pineapple juice at boozy dinners with the clients it was his job to court. Around the office, his nickname was “Vanilla.”
On the other hand, Rio’s executives were wary of the arrests’ timing and the involvement of the state security ministry. Some wondered whether it was retribution for canceling the Chinalco deal. Their suspicions only increased when the company’s security team discovered that a digital key Hu carried, which granted remote access to sensitive internal computer systems, had been used right after his arrest. His captors had uploaded and downloaded files, encrypting them so Rio couldn’t find out what they contained.
Ian Bauert, an Australian senior marketing executive who spoke fluent Mandarin, soon flew to Shanghai to learn more. He and his colleagues were followed everywhere by agents who made no effort to hide their presence. Men in dark suits sat next to them at lunch, then followed them down the street, an experience one member of the group likened to being in a bad spy movie. A Chinese-American employee in Shanghai became so terrified that he fled to Las Vegas.
“You embarrassed China and China’s people in front of the world”
Prosecutors hadn’t formally charged Hu and his colleagues, and they weren’t revealing any details about the case. An Australian diplomat who visited Hu in prison reported that he seemed to be in good health. Hu had been instructed by the Chinese not to discuss the case, but he told the diplomat he hadn’t been allowed to speak to a defense lawyer.
Within a month of the arrests, as tensions between Australia and China over the case were generating international headlines, Albanese and another Rio executive met in London with Chinese ambassador Fu Ying. “You embarrassed China and China’s people in front of the world,” Fu told them, according to two people familiar with the conversation. But she offered them a way forward, however vague: Show the people of China Rio Tinto’s human side, and build a more cooperative relationship. (In response to a request for comment, Fu’s office said that this didn’t sound like something she would say, and that she had no knowledge of, and couldn’t comment on, Hu’s case.)
In August, Hu and his colleagues were formally charged, with the accusations of state espionage downgraded to stealing commercial secrets. That at least took the death penalty off the table. Walsh told the press that Rio Tinto would stand by the men, even as the company was working to restore relations with the Chinese. After the arrests, it had shelved the “good, the bad, and the ugly” scheme and carried on using an outdated iron ore price benchmark instead. Executives were now seeking a distinguished independent figure who could break the impasse.
Late that year, Albanese and Mivil Deschenes, a former Canadian military officer who was Rio’s head of security, sat down in the New York office of one of the few people in the world with direct access to the highest levels of Chinese government: Henry Kissinger. The former U.S. secretary of state told the Rio executives he couldn’t do anything about the four people in jail, but Albanese and Deschenes hired him anyway, paying what Australian media reported was at least $5 million. (Kissinger Associates didn’t reply to emails requesting comment. Kissinger serves as honorary advisory-board chair for Bloomberg’s upcoming New Economy Forum.)
In the following months, Kissinger got Rio executives pondering the same question over and over: How much do you want to be China’s friend? The answer, it soon emerged, was very badly indeed.
The trial of Hu and his colleagues began on March 22, 2010, at the Shanghai First Intermediate People’s Court. No media were permitted to attend, but the occasional presence of consular staff and the later release of a 26-page decision allowed the public and the company to finally learn more about the charges. It would be too late to do much about it, though—the vast majority of Chinese criminal proceedings end in conviction.
Prosecutors told the court that a Chinese steelmaker had given Hu a gray suitcase containing 1 million yuan (then about $150,000) in return for a long-term supply contract, and that the Rio executive had used a fake consulting agreement and a friend’s Hong Kong company to get $300,000 in kickbacks from another customer. Hu’s wife testified that he’d brought money home and put it in a safe.
Faced with this evidence, Hu pleaded guilty to accepting bribes. It’s unclear, based on the decision, whether all of his colleagues did the same; some of them challenged portions of the evidence. All four contested the charge of illegally accessing commercial secrets. That portion of the proceedings occurred in private across a few days, without Australian diplomats there to observe.
Albanese was in the country as his employees’ fates were being decided, but not because of the trial. Rio and Chinalco had just agreed on a $1.4 billion accord to jointly develop one of the world’s largest mineral reserves: Simandou, in the West African nation of Guinea, said to contain 2.3 billion metric tons, most of it iron ore. The move was part of a plan Rio and Kissinger had come up with to embrace China as a partner, not just a customer.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY 731; PHOTOGRAPHER: FENG LI/GETTY IMAGES
The CEO took the stage at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing alongside a group of visiting company leaders on hand to pay homage at the China Development Forum. Dwarfing them overhead was the emblem of the People’s Republic: Tiananmen Gate crowned by four small stars, representing the masses, and one large star, representing the party. After a Q&A session, the executives greeted the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, a paternal figure known as Grandpa Wen. When Albanese’s turn came, an aide whispered in Wen’s ear, and the premier’s eyes widened. Wen leaned in to shake hands and said something in Mandarin that was translated for Albanese afterward: “Let’s move forward.”
A few days later, the court convicted Hu and his colleagues of accessing commercial secrets, in addition to bribery. The decision said that he’d asked his staff and industry contacts to send him confidential information about BHP Billiton’s prices, CISA’s operations, and Chinese efforts to curb day-to-day ore trading. The judge blamed the defendants for the breakdown of the 2009 iron ore talks, saying it had “severely impacted and damaged the competitive interests of Chinese steel enterprises.”
The information Hu was accused of stealing seemed like the kind of thing an employee of a company involved in a commercial negotiation would reasonably be expected to research. But in the Chinese system, state secrets were what the government said they were. Hu was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The other defendants got terms of 7, 8, and 14 years.
Rio quickly fired them all. “I am determined,” Albanese said in a statement, “that the unacceptable conduct of these four employees will not prevent Rio Tinto from continuing to build its important relationship with China.”
As Hu was moving into Qingpu Prison, a new chapter in Rio Tinto’s relations with China began. The annual iron ore benchmark, the source of so much conflict, was finally killed off that year by Rio’s archrival, BHP Billiton, and the Brazilian company Vale SA, which moved to quarterly pricing based on market rates. Rio, no longer taking an active role in negotiations, followed suit.
In 2011, Albanese oversaw the creation of a joint company that would pass on Rio’s expertise in finding and exploiting mineral deposits to Chinalco. Rio also made symbolic gestures, sponsoring research into the metallurgical secrets of China’s iconic 2,200-year-old Terracotta Army statues. A feng shui master redesigned the company’s Shanghai office, decorating it with a 4-foot-tall jade horse in a pool of water for good luck. Albanese began visiting China as often as 10 times a year, speaking on one occasion at the Central Party School in Beijing, which grooms future Communist leaders. If the Chinese people couldn’t see Rio’s human face before, they were seeing it now.
The specter of Hu lingered, though. In the summer of 2012, MI5 Director-General Jonathan Evans gave a rare public lecture in London’s financial district to warn about the “astonishing” level of state-sponsored online spying. One attack, he said, had cost a British company an estimated £800 million ($1.3 billion) in lost revenue, “not just through intellectual property loss but also from commercial disadvantage in contractual negotiations.”
Evans didn’t identify the company or the attacker, but in 2015 the journalist Gordon Corera reported in his book Intercept that the spy chief had been talking about Rio Tinto and China. Several security officials confirm Corera’s account. According to them and other sources, MI5 attributes the breach discovered in 2008 at Rio to a unit of the People’s Liberation Army.
The case was unusual, one former U.K. security official says, in that it involved both the PLA and China’s state security ministry. The coordination, if true, suggested that a powerful political or industry figure had targeted the company. The identity of any such sponsor remains a mystery, but Rio’s executives came to believe that someone had learned about their plan to rip up long-term contracts and taken action to stop it. If so, it worked, costing the company hundreds of millions of pounds—the £800 million was its estimate, sources there say—by forcing it to sell ore at a benchmark that was less than half the peak price during that period. As for Hu and his colleagues, whether they were guilty or innocent, they were collateral damage. Asked about Hu, Rio Tinto, and the hacking allegations, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry said, “I am not aware of the situation that you speak of,” adding that the country “adamantly opposes and cracks down on any form of cyberattacks and is a firm defender of cybersecurity.”
When a company comes under attack from the Chinese government, it has two options: Pack up and leave, as Google did after a censorship dispute in 2010, or suck it up, make allowances, and watch the profits roll in. Rio had opted for the latter, with a harsh lesson learned. In the wake of Hu’s imprisonment, it started to overhaul its information security protocols, hiring management consultants and buying new high-tech systems. At one point, consultants discovered an important, unguarded computer server inside a shed in Utah, where the company has copper mining operations. Another time, security staff and an expert dispatched by British intelligence watched as a Chinese hacker took control of Albanese’s computer; the team sought to gather information about the threat while keeping the intruder out of sensitive areas.
Total security would prove all but impossible to achieve, but profit was another matter. In December 2015, Rio published an article on its website celebrating its “extraordinary” growth in China, which by then accounted for 40 percent of global sales, about $19 billion annually. Andrew Harding, Rio’s head of iron ore, praised “the deep respect, the friendship and the reciprocity that has resulted from working very closely together.”
It was a strange friendship, with few boundaries. In meetings, Rio representatives smiled and shook hands with Chinese partners who, one executive joked in private, probably knew whether he scrunched or folded his toilet paper. In 2016 an executive preparing to fly to Beijing for talks about the Simandou partnership was told his entire inbox had been downloaded. The African project became a costly disaster. Months later, Rio agreed to sell its stake to Chinalco for about $1 billion, without having produced a single ton of iron ore in Guinea. Afterward, a series of private emails exchanged by Rio executives about payments totaling $10.5 million to a friend of Guinea’s president were leaked online. The company formally reported itself to authorities in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia, who opened bribery investigations that remain active. The source of the leak has never been identified.
Today, the latest generation of Rio executives can be seen on television talking up China’s economic prospects, which are inextricably linked to their own. But a person familiar with the company’s security arrangements says that whenever the relationship gets tense, Rio prepares evacuation plans for its employees in China. One time, the plan involved arranging a fake conference in Singapore as cover. Rio went so far as to book a hotel.
None of the television crews and newspaper photographers camped outside Qingpu Prison saw Hu leave on July 4. Bloomberg Businessweek couldn’t reach his wife or other family members during several visits to their former home in Shanghai. His health deteriorated during his eight years in Qingpu, a former inmate says—heart trouble, for which he had to be hospitalized.
The media reported that Hu’s first act as a free man was to meet his wife, and some speculated that he might visit his elderly parents’ home in northern China before flying to Australia. Once there, he’ll be free, after eight years, to talk about the case that changed his life, or to fade into obscurity if he prefers. His chair in the library of Brigade No. 8 will sit empty, but perhaps only for a while. There are plenty of executives willing to take a risk or two to tap into the world’s largest market. —With Simon Lee, John Liu, Michael Riley, and Martin Ritchie
编者著，此文翻译自Bloomberg 报道《When Rio Tinto Met China’s Iron Hand》，标题为中文翻译所取。
过去的八年里，胡士泰（Stern Hu）在上海青浦监狱内服刑。每天早上6点，他与和他同住一间牢房的那十几个人一起起床，无精打采地穿上蓝白相间的制服，在铺位前排队，迎接警卫。他们会喊：“早上好,警官，谢谢照顾，警官!”在关押外国犯人的第8号小队里的每个人都认识Hu。这位安静的61岁老人比其他人高出一个头。他出生在中国，有澳大利亚护照和一头浓密的白发，曾是世界最大矿业公司之一的力拓Rio Tinto Group的明星人物，2010年因窃取商业机密和收受贿赂而入狱。中国政府表示，他的违法犯罪行为使中国钢铁业损失了高达1000亿美元。
对八号小队的成员来说，Hu也是图书馆的负责人。在早餐就着一点咸菜喝完稀饭后，他会去公共休息室尽头的书架旁的一张小桌子坐着。他本应该记录书的借还情况，但一个前囚犯说他让狱友随心而为。他一天大部分的时间是用来为看守翻译些东西。晚上9点。牢房门会自动上锁，他就躺在一张薄薄的床垫上，听着他的室友打鼾或梦中大哭。
Hu完成了自我谴责课程，为自己的行为书写了长篇的反省书。加上他的图书馆服务和良好的名声，因此他的刑期从10年减少到8年。7月4日，作为在中国监狱里待得时间最长的西方高管之一Hu出狱了。作为力拓Rio Tinto公司在上海的首席代表，Hu曾帮助公司借中国经济奇迹之机创下利润记录。由Hu供应和销售的数亿吨铁矿石被锻造成钢铁，用于汽车、桥梁和摩天大楼。然后，在2009年，两国关系恶化，Hu和他的三名同事被逮捕，据消息人士形容这是一场有针对性的逮捕活动——他们说这一活动涉及一次大规模的黑客行动，造成了公司超过10亿美元的损失。
力拓Rio发生的事情从未被深入报道过。该公司拒绝就本文置评，中国政府也否认对有针对性的行动知情。然而，在三年的时间里，超过20个消息来源——包括现任和前任政府和情报官员、现任和前任力拓Rio Tinto的雇员和高管，以及私人安全顾问——披露了Hu被监禁的细节，该公司与中国官员的往来，以及黑客指控。由于这一事件的敏感性，他们要求匿名。许多人说这段经历让人难以忘怀，甚至是创伤。一位前高管称这是他职业生涯中最可怕的时期。综上所述，他们的描述是中国著名的黑客对一家西方公司进行商业网络入侵的首个、也是最具破坏性的案例之一，也是中国影响全球贸易的能力的一个警示故事。
60年前，毛主席曾预言中国将成为世界上最大的钢铁生产国。他计划让农村公社建造数千座不起眼的“后院”熔炉，这一计划产生了一些令人难忘的宣传，但却没有真正生产多少钢铁。20世纪50年代初，中国的年产量约为16万吨，仅仅够建造几座摩天大楼。但通过经济改革向私营部门开放生产后，这一数字急剧上升。到2003年，中国每年生产2亿吨钢材，足以建造3000座帝国大厦。
尽管中国钢铁业在蓬勃发展，但是中国几乎没有高质量的铁矿石。铁矿石通过高温加热、提纯，然后和氧化物混合而炼制钢铁。相反，它依赖少数出口商，尤其是Rio Tinto公司成立于1873年，Rio Tinto公司由寻求从西班牙政府手中收购里约热内卢铜矿的伦敦金融家创办，公司发展成为一家国际企业集团，业务遍及非洲和美国，是矿藏的顶级猎手，销售从钻石到滑石的所有产品。1966年，澳大利亚北部偏远地区皮尔巴拉(Pilbara)的一个铁矿投产，确保了公司的转型。按照传统，铁矿石市场是有序的，利润微薄。每个地区最大的买家和卖家每年都会协商价格。在上世纪90年代，这种做法很管用，当时日本钢厂是最大的客户，价格稳定在每吨10至15美元之间。但中国的需求改变了一切。2005年，全球基准价格翻了一番。
当Rio派出谈判代表前往中国敲定协议时，他们发现了与日本市场截然不同的东西。那时，从国有大型企业到斗志旺盛的家族企业,中国有大约4000家钢铁制造商。事实证明，这些铁矿石买家的行为就像交易员一样,以在一年期合约争抢订购货物，并在公开市场转手倒卖迅速获利。Rio的高管中流传着这样的消息:铁矿石业务负责人Sam Walsh的儿子在澳大利亚曾被接洽过，当时他从事别的工作。他MBA项目的一个中国同学坐在他的办公室里，和他说，如果他能安排把Rio的货物送到某个特定的港口，就按市场价，再加上几百万美元支付报酬。报价被拒绝了。
2005年前后，满载铁矿石的2公里长的火车隆隆地驶往澳大利亚海岸，装满了开往青岛和唐山的货船。2006年8月，Rio在其全球办事处举行庆祝活动，纪念皮尔巴拉地区出口40年。一位名叫Stern Hu的营销主管在上海外滩河滨区安排了一场烟花表演，他看着烟火和霓虹灯的灯光交相呼应。在那一年，Rio宣布了创纪录的下半年利润，部分原因是在中国的销售额高达18亿美元。但一场危机即将到来，将会威胁到公司的生存。
2007年5月Tom Albanese成为Rio的首席执行官。作为新泽西本地人，他去了阿拉斯加上大学，这样他就就有大把的业余时间去爬山;他利用假期时间为地质学家从山上搬回岩石。20世纪90年代，当他第一次为Rio工作时，他穿着他最好的阿拉斯加夹克——大胆的格子图案外套出现在伦敦奥尔德曼伯里广场的总部。他随后被领导送到最近的裁缝那里。
在Albanese被任命为首席执行官几个月后，有传言称，Rio最大的竞争对手必和必拓(BHP Billiton Ltd.)正在计划收购。同年11月份，传言变成了现实，出价1500亿美元，是当时公司历史上收购规模最大的一次。Rio拒绝了必和必拓的提议，收购因此变得充满敌意，Albanese的重心转向了保住公司。
几个月后，当中国国有的中国铝业公司(Aluminum Corp. of China，简称中铝)对Rio的股票进行隔夜突袭时，Albanese正与约100名员工进行每月例行的电话会议。毫无预警的情况下，中国政府已经成功地收购了该公司9%的股份，并成为其最大的投资者。此举被广泛认为是为了阻止必和必拓的收购，以免合并后的公司通过垄断来扼杀中国工厂。(中铝没有回复记者的传真置评请求。)当天下午，Albanese和另一位高管在Rio总部会见了中铝总裁肖亚庆。进行了几次生硬的握手之后，Albanese欢迎肖亚庆加入公司。任何能帮助公司避开必和必拓的人都是朋友。
然而，就在中铝突袭的同时，Rio的高管们注意到，他们的电脑表现得很奇怪。键盘命令需要很长时间才能在屏幕上反应。电子邮件自己打开和关闭。惊恐的Rio董事会联系了英国国内的间谍机构军情五处（MI5）。安全部门起初似乎并不感兴趣，毕竟Rio只是出售金属和矿石而已。但据两位知情人士透露，几周后，一名公司代表被召至伦敦桥(London Bridge)附近一座没有标识的大楼。他被要求交出手机、皮带和手表。然后他上楼去见了一个未透露姓名的人。
这名官员说，“你们的通讯不安全”。“这是什么意思?”这位员工不可思议的问到。“数据?电子邮件吗?电话吗?短信吗?”官员回答，是的。他特别指出，六个主权国家都能看到你们内部所有信息。“我想你也是其中之一”，那雇员说。这位官员回答说，“大多数观察者都还行，但你真的需要担心中国人”。
军情五处建议Rio聘请一位英国顾问。公司曾考虑对其IT基础设施进行彻底改革，但最终还是选择了政府官员所说的“打鼹鼠”式的修复，比如使用一次性手机。为了讨论必和必拓的收购计划，Rio的高管们决定在总部内部深处会面，在一个被称为“地堡”的无窗房间里，以防止外界通过用激光照射窗户并测量震动的方式来偷听会议。他们还使用了一个代码名称系统。Rio被称为罗伯特（Robert）。必和必拓是威廉（William）。收购防御是曼彻斯特（Manchester）。只有少数高管和董事会成员知道中国黑客已全面入侵了Rio的系统。但该公司的注意力集中在更紧迫的收购问题上。2008年末，由于另一场危机的爆发，收购交易以失败告终:一连串的银行倒闭引发了信贷紧缩，并蔓延至全球金融体系。有一段时间，中国钢铁制造商不再购买铁矿石。有些人甚至因为拒绝收货而违反合同。Albanese和他的同事们在圣诞节期间花了大量时间努力维持公司的运营，同时背负着400亿美元的债务。他们飞遍了世界各地，进进出出空空如也的机场，解雇了矿工，并让数千名员工提前回家过节。数十艘货轮停在澳大利亚海岸外，无处可去。
Rio很快制定了两个计划来摆脱动荡的局面。要么进入市场融资(代码名称:Glasgow)，要么以出让关键资产(代码名称:Colleen)的股份获得中铝的救助。最终选择了Colleen。2009年2月12日，Albanese与中国铝业签署了一份价值195亿美元的现金和可转换债券协议。Rio的股价迅速下跌，非中国股东抱怨说，他们被骗了，澳大利亚议员对中国政府参与澳大利亚煤矿而感到担忧。
尽管中国宣布了一项价值约5850亿美元的刺激计划，将使铁矿石市场起死回生，但市场的动荡仍在继续。面对这种反对，Rio的董事会主席杜立石(Jan du Plessis)投降了。同年6月，公司宣布放弃与中铝的交易，转而发行新股。在公开场合，中国方面持外交态度。私下里,他们异常愤怒。中铝断绝了与Rio的联系，其高管甚至拒绝接听电话。
无论关系紧张与否，中国钢厂仍需要原材料，Rio仍需要客户。可以预见的是，2009年的铁矿石价格谈判并不顺利。这些钢铁制造商的代表是中国钢铁工业协会(China Iron & Steel Association, CISA)，这是一家与中国政府关系密切的行业组织。CISA曾经批评过Rio，其中一位领导人单尚华说:“Rio脑子里有泡，全是水。”Rio的谈判代表们视CISA领导单尚华为一个好战的黑客。
知情人士说，同年5月，CLSA的单尚华将谈判代表召集到中钢协在北京的总部，并在那里发表了直言不讳的讲话。“我会告诉你价格是多少，”一位消息人士回忆他的话。“我也会告诉你我们要多少吨。一旦你接受了，交易就完成了。”谈判代表们谢过他，就离开了。(2014年，单尚华因不相关的腐败指控被判入狱，目前无法联系到他。中钢协官员拒绝置评。)
在金融危机期间被中国客户抛弃，随着市场价格开始上涨，Rio需要复兴。6月底，几位高管在香港五星级的香格里拉酒店会面。会议的主题是:如何应对中国? Hu也在其中。他毕业于北京大学，上世纪90年代在澳大利亚的一家科技公司工作时，他成为了一名澳大利亚公民。在1996年以销售代表的身份加入Rio之后，他迅速晋升。他在中国的工作是与潜在客户会面，签订合同，并管理供应合同。他衣着整洁优雅，与中国最大的钢铁生产商打交道，就像与墨尔本和伦敦的老板打交道一样自在。
Hu和其他人在香格里拉度过了一天一夜，没有采取任何特别的安全措施。他们列出了一份中国生产商的名单，根据他们在信贷危机期间履行合同的程度，将他们分为“好人，坏人，丑陋的人”（“good, the bad, and the ugly”）团队决定取消与最严重违规者的长期合同，将其他违规者的合同从一年期转为三个月。如果需求和价格继续上涨，这一改变过将让中国铁矿石买家损失数亿美元。
Hu回到上海继续完善计划，并向Rio管理层汇报。但在他回国几天后，7月5日，警察带着搜查令出现在他公司的办公室。这些警察有条不紊地进入了四名员工的办公室，带走了文件、电脑硬盘、存储条和笔记本电脑，并为他们拿走的每一件物品留下了签名收据。
当天上午，Police还突击搜查了Hu在上海郊区的别墅，逮捕了Hu，并带走了文件和电子设备。另外三名办公室被搜查的员工都是向Hu报告的中国公民，他们是在家中被抓的。很快，Rio的全球执行团队接到了关于逮捕行动的紧急电话，但没有人知道发生了什么。中国政府甚至不愿透露这四人的关押地点，因为逮捕行动事关National Security。
直到7月8日，澳大利亚领事馆才报告说，Hu因涉嫌受贿和获取国家机密而被捕。Rio的高管们不知道这意味着什么，除了一件事:如果Hu被定罪，他可能面临死刑。面对中国司法体系的不透明，Hu的同事们也不得不自问，他们对他了解多少。
在公开场合，铁矿石部门负责人Walsh告诉媒体，这些贿赂指控是没有根据的，该公司的员工“始终保持正直，遵守Rio严格公开的道德行为准则”。私下里，高管们不得不怀疑，Hu是否真做了他被指控所做的事情。他们知道他已经结婚了，有孩子，有漂亮的房子，而且他是一个受过正规训练的小提琴家，滴酒不沾，如果因工作需要，在与客户的酒宴上也就喝菠萝汁。在办公室里，他的绰号是“香草”。另一方面，Rio的高管们对逮捕的时机和警察的介入持疑虑态度。
一些人想知道，这是否是对取消先前中铝的交易的报复。他们的怀疑有所增加，因为公司的安全团队发现就在Hu被逮捕后，他随身携带的数字密钥就被使用（该数字钥匙是用于远程访问公司内部机密的电脑系统），有人上传和下载了大量文件，并对它们进行加密，这样Rio就无法了解这些文件里包含的内容。澳大利亚高级营销主管Ian Bauert很快就飞到上海去了解更多情况，他能说一口流利的普通话。他和他的同事声称到处都被跟踪，跟踪者毫不掩饰自己的存在。午餐时，身穿深色西装的男人们坐在他们旁边，然后跟着他们后面。公司一名资深成员将这种经历比作在拍一部糟糕的间谍电影。一位在上海的华裔美国员工吓得逃到拉斯维加斯。
检方没有正式起诉Hu及其同事，也没有透露有关此案的任何细节。一名澳大利亚外交官在狱中探望了Hu，他说Hu看起来身体状况良好。中国政府指示Hu不要讨论此案，但他告诉这位外交官，他没有被允许与辩护律师交谈。
在逮捕行动的一个月内，澳大利亚和中国之间的紧张关系成为国际新闻的头条，Albanese和另一位Rio高管在伦敦会见了中国大使。据两位知情人士透露，当时的大使告诉他们:“你们让中国和中国人民在世界面前感到羞愧。”但她向他们提供了事情改进的机会，尽管有些模糊:向中国人民展示Rio Tinto的人性化一面，并建立更合作的关系。(在回应记者的置评请求时，大使的办公室表示，这听起来不像是她会说的话，她对Hu的案子也一无所知，无法置评。)
8月份，Hu和他的同事被正式起诉，国家间谍罪被降级为窃取商业秘密罪。这至少让死刑从谈判桌上消失了。Walsh对媒体表示，尽管该公司正努力恢复与中国的关系，但Rio Tinto仍站在Hu这一边。逮捕之后，它搁置了“好人、坏人、和丑陋的人”的计划，转而使用以前的铁矿石价格基准。高管们那时正在寻找一位能够打破双方僵局的资深独立顾问以从中斡旋。
那年晚些时候，Albanese和前加拿大军官、Rio的安全部门负责人Mivil Deschenes在纽约的办公室里会见了少数的几个能和中国高层直接对话的人之一：亨利·基辛格（Henry Kissinger）。这位前美国国务卿对Rio的高管说，他对这四名在押人员无能为力，但Albanese和Deschenes还是雇佣了他，据澳媒报道给基辛格支付了至少500万美元的报酬。(基辛格顾问公司没有回复要求置评的电子邮件。)在接下来的几个月里，基辛格让Rio的高管反复思考同一个问题:你想成为中国的朋友吗？很快就知道，这个问题的答案非常重要。
2010年3月22日，上海第一中级人民法院开庭审理Hu及其同事的案件。没有媒体被允许参加，但领事人员偶尔被允许在场，以及随后公布的26页的判决书，让公众和该公司最终了解了有关指控的更多信息。然而，要对此采取行动已为时太晚——绝大多数中国刑事诉讼都以定罪告终。
检察官告诉法庭,一家中国钢铁制造商给Hu一个灰色箱子里面装有100万元人民币(当时约合150000美元)以换取长期供应合同,而Rio的高管曾使用一个假的咨询协议和一个朋友的香港公司获得了来自另一个客户的300000美元的回扣。Hu的妻子作证说，Hu把钱带回家，并锁在保险箱里。
面对这一证据，Hu承认受贿。根据这一决定，尚不清楚他的所有同事是否都这么做;其中一些人对部分证据提出质疑。四人都对非法获取商业秘密的指控提出异议。这部分诉讼庭审是在几天内私下进行的，没有澳大利亚外交官在场旁听。
当他的雇员的命运被判决时，Albanese也在中国，但不是因为审判的事来的。Rio和中国铝业刚刚达成一项14亿美元的协议,共同开发世界最大的矿藏之一:Simandou,位于西非国家几内亚,据说含有23亿吨矿产,大部分都是铁矿石。此举是Rio和基辛格提出拥抱中国作为合作伙伴,而不仅仅是一个客户的计划的一部分。
在北京人民大会堂，这位首席执行官与一群到访的公司领导人一起登台，向中国发展论坛致敬。在他们头顶上的是人民共和国的象征:天安门由代表群众的四颗小星星和代表党的一颗大星星围绕。在问答环节过后，高管们迎接了中国领导人。当轮到Albanese的时候，一位助手在总理耳边低语，总理的眼睛睁得大大的。领导人靠近来和他握手，并用普通话说了几句话，这句话后来被翻译告知Albanese:“让我们继续往前走。”
几天后，法院判定Hu及其同事在获取商业秘密的同时犯有贿赂罪。该判决称，他要求他的员工和业内人士向他提供有关必和必拓(BHP Billiton)的价格、中钢协的业务以及中国限制日常铁矿石交易的努力的机密信息。法官将2009年铁矿石谈判破裂归咎于被告，称这“严重影响和损害了中国钢铁企业的竞争利益”。Hu被指控所窃取的信息似乎是一家参与商业谈判的公司的员工理应研究的东西。但在中国的体制中，什么是机密是由政府来规定的。Hu被判处有期徒刑10年。其他被告分别被判处有期徒刑7年、8年和14年。
Rio很快就把他们全部解雇了。Albanese在一份声明中表示:“我坚信，这四名员工的不可接受的行为不会阻止Rio Tinto继续与中国建立重要的关系。”当Hu进入青浦监狱时，对外贸易伙伴关系的新篇章也开始了。导致如此多冲突的年度铁矿石基准价格，最终在当年被Rio的主要竞争对手必和必拓(BHP Billiton)和巴西淡水河谷(Vale SA)取消，他们根据市场价格采取季度定价。Rio也采取了同样的做法，并不再在谈判中发挥积极作用。
2011年，Albanese监督成立了一家合资公司，将Rio在发现和开采矿藏方面的专长传授给中铝。Rio还做出了一些象征性的姿态，赞助研究中国有2200年历史的兵马俑的冶金秘密。一位风水大师重新设计了该公司在上海的办公室，在水池里放了一匹4英尺高的玉马，以祈求好运。
Albanese开始每年访问中国10次，其中一次还在北京党校做演讲，该学校培养了未来的领导人。如果中国人民以前看不到Rio的人，他们现在看到了。不过，Hu的事件还在萦绕。2012年夏天，军情五处总干事Jonathan Evans罕见地在伦敦金融区发表了公开演讲，对政府资助的网络间谍活动的“惊人”水平发出警告。他说,一次黑客袭击造成了一家英国公司估计£8亿(13亿美元)的损失,“不仅来自知识产权的流失也来自合同谈判中的商业劣势。”
Evan没有指明是哪家公司，也没有指明袭击者，但2015年，记者Gordon Corera在他的《Intercept》一书中称，这位间谍头子（Evan）一直在谈论的是Rio Tinto和中国。几名安全官员证实了Corera的说法。根据他们和其他消息来源，军情五处（MI5）将2008年在Rio发现的泄密事件归咎于中国人民解放军。
一名前英国安全官员说，这起案件不同寻常，因为它涉及中国人民解放军。如果这是真的，那么这一协调表明，有一个强大的政治或行业人物在针对该公司。此类赞助者的身份迄今仍是个谜，但Rio的高管们开始相信，有人已经了解了当时他们打算撕毁长期合同的计划，并采取了行动来阻止它。如果是这样,它成功了,公司损失了数亿英镑—据消息称8亿英镑仅是一个估计–例如迫使它以不到巅峰时期价格的一半的基准价格出售铁矿石。至于Hu和他的同事，无论他们是有罪还是无辜的，他们都是附带损害。当被问及Hu、Rio Tinto和黑客指控时，中国官方发言人表示，“我不了解你所说的情况”，并补充说，中国“坚决反对和打击任何形式的网络攻击，是网络安全的坚定捍卫者”。
当一家公司受到中国政府的攻击时，它有两种选择:打包走人，就像谷歌在2010年的审查纠纷后做的那样，或者接受，作出让步，然后看着利润滚滚而来。Rio选择了后者，从中得到了惨痛的教训。在Hu被监禁后，它开始全面改革其信息安全协议，聘请管理顾问，并购买新的高科技系统。有一次，咨询师在犹他州的一个仓库里发现了一个重要的、无人看管的电脑服务器，该公司在犹他州有铜矿开采业务。还有一次，安保人员和英国情报部门派出的一名专家目睹了一名中国黑客控制了Albanese的电脑;该小组试图收集有关威胁的信息，同时将入侵者排除在敏感区域之外。
完全安全几乎是不可能实现的，但利润则是另一回事。2015年12 月，Rio在其网站上发表了一篇文章，庆祝其在中国的“非凡”增长，年销售额约为190亿美元，占全球销售额的40%。Rio铁矿石业务负责人Andrew Harding称赞道:“由于密切合作而产生的尊敬、友谊和互惠是如此深厚。
这是一种奇怪的友谊，几乎没有界限。在会议上，Rio的代表微笑着与中国合作伙伴握手。一位高管私下里开玩笑说，这些合作伙伴可能知道这个代表是揉还是叠他的厕纸。2016年，一名准备飞往北京讨论Simandou合作关系的高管被告知，他的整个邮件收件箱都已被下载。非洲项目变成了一场代价高昂的灾难。几个月后，Rio同意以约10亿美元的价格将所持股份出售给中铝，并没有在几内亚生产一吨铁矿石。此后，有关Rio高管向几内亚总统的一位朋友汇款总计1050万美元的一系列私人电子邮件在网上被泄露。该公司正式向美国、英国和澳大利亚当局报告，展开了仍在积极进行的贿赂调查。
泄漏源头从未被确认。如今，电视上可以看到最新一代的Rio高管在谈论中国的经济前景，这与他们自己的经济前景密不可分。但一位熟悉该公司安全安排的人士表示，每当关系变得紧张时，Rio都会为在华员工制定疏散计划。有一次，计划是在新加坡安排一个假会议作为掩护。Rio甚至为此还订了一家旅馆。
7月4日，在青浦监狱外安营扎寨的电视台工作人员和报纸摄影师都没有看到Hu的离开。外媒曾多次造访他的妻子或其他家庭成员在上海的故居，但都没能联系上。在青浦度过的八年时间里，他的健康状况恶化了，据说是心脏问题，为此还住院了。据媒体报道，Hu作为一个自由人的第一个举动就是去见他的妻子，一些人猜测他可能会在飞往澳大利亚之前先去看望他在中国北方的年迈的父母。一旦到了澳大利亚，八年来，他终于可以自由地谈论那个改变他生活的案子，或者如果他愿意的话，他可能淡出人们的视线。他在八号小队图书馆的椅子将会空着，但可能只会空一会。仍会有很多高管愿意冒一两个风险，来进入世界最大的市场。