Blockhead confidence
Joined: 02 Apr 2008
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Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 12:01 am Post subject: Champing at the Chinese Bit |
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Google and the world's 3 big iron miners standing up to Chinese shenanigans?
Trend? Isolated incidents?
ft.com wrote: |
Global miners have sidelined China, their biggest customer, in the annual iron ore price negotiations because of political gridlock over the resource in the industry and government and fears about retribution if the talks collapse.
Vale of Brazil, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, the big operators that mine iron ore in Australia, are talking instead to Japanese customers to reach a benchmark agreement that they can present to Beijing on a "take it or leave it" basis.
The move to sideline Beijing is remarkable as China is by far the world's largest iron ore importer, accounting for over 50 per cent of the seaborne market.
The miners have so far held no substantive negotiations with the Chinese side, led by Baosteel, the big state-owned steel mill, according to people familiar with the talks. They added that there were no plans to travel to China for talks, meeting instead in Singapore.
One executive said: "As far as I am concerned, they [the Chinese negotiators] could come over to Australia if they want to talk." |
and
nytimes.com wrote: |
BEIJING � Google said Tuesday that it would stop cooperating with Chinese Internet censorship and consider shutting down its operations in the country altogether, citing assaults from hackers on its computer systems and China�s attempts to �limit free speech on the Web.� |
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