By Fayen Wong
PERTH (Reuters) - Australia warned China on Sunday of the risks to business confidence from Beijing's detention without charge of an Australian mining executive accused of spying, and said the affair could take a long time to untangle.
The detention a week ago of Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto's top iron ore salesman in China, Australian Stern Hu, and three of his Chinese subordinates has cast a shadow of Australia-China relations and unnerved the iron ore trade.
Rio Tinto is the world's second largest iron ore miner and was locked in intense price negotiations with China when Hu and the three others were detained in Shanghai, accused of stealing state secrets and bribing Chinese steelmakers for information.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said on Sunday he was urging Chinese authorities to handle the case expeditiously, and to consider the wider risks for international business confidence, but he stressed the case was likely to drag on for some time yet.
"We may well be in for a long haul here," he told reporters in Perth after a week in which opposition lawmakers accused China of human rights violations by holding Hu without charge or access to legal representation since his detention on July 5.
Chinese authorities allowed Australian consular officials to see Hu in detention on Friday, and Canberra reported him to be in good health, but Smith said Hu had still not been charged and there was no timetable for whether or not charges would be laid.
Australian authorities were still pressing for details of the allegations against Hu, Smith said, adding that China had still not revealed to them any evidence supporting the detentions.
"One of the issues for Chinese authorities to contemplate is the extent to which the circumstances of this case will cause the international business community to have any cause for concern," he said.
The affair has been confined to Rio Tinto, but rival iron ore producers Anglo-Australian miner BHP Billiton and Brazil's Vale are watching events closely.
Asked if other Australian firms operating in China had been questioned by Chinese authorities in relation to the espionage probe, Smith said: "There is nothing to cause me to believe that the matters relating to Hu's detention would in any way go wider within the Australian business community operating in China."
(Reporting by Fayen Wong, writing by Mark Bendeich; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
