Business and Human Rights
Case 1
On July 17, 2010, a riot took place in Fanhe village in Hengshan county, Yulin city, Shaanxi province, reportedly causing injuries to 87 people, after local officials failed to implement a court ruling on mining rights, according to a July 19 Economic Information article ( in Chinese). The dispute centered on the right to extract coal from a mine after an allegedly fraudulent change to a mining license affected legal ownership of that right. According to the article, in 1996, when the mine began operations, Fanhe residents held a collective mining license. However, when the license came up for renewal in 2000, an individual from Shandong province changed the license for his own benefit by "using a privately carved seal, alteration of the application form, and other means ..." The change prevented the local village collective from operating the mine.
On April 26, 2010, the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC, a commission under the State Council, which holds, supervises, and manages state-owned assets, including central-level state-owned enterprises) published the Interim Provisions on the Protection of Commercial Secrets of Central Enterprises (Provisions). The provisions came into effect on the date of publication. Though the Provisions apply only to central-level state-owned enterprises (SOEs), according to a May 5 post on the China Law Blog, "It would also come as no surprise if provincial-level authorities would take SASAC's lead and issue regulations aimed at provincial-level SOEs in the near future."
Scope of the Commercial Secrets Provisions
Congressional-Executive Commission on China | www.cecc.gov
Congressional-Executive Commission on China Releases 2010 Annual Report on Human Rights and the Rule of Law in China
October 15, 2010
Transcript (PDF) (Text)
For several years, this Commission has noted that intellectual property rights (IPR) enforcement in China remains weak, and counterfeiting and piracy continue to be widespread across many sectors of the Chinese economy. This is the case despite significant changes to China's intellectual property rights regime since China began preparing for accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The following text was retrieved from the National People's Congress Web site on February 1, 2013.
According to a February 10, 2010, report by Xinhua, China's state-run news outlet, the Shanghai People's Procuratorate has decided to prosecute four employees of the Anglo-Australian mining firm Rio Tinto—an Australian citizen of Chinese descent, Stern Hu, and three Chinese nationals, Wang Yong, Ge Minqiang and Liu Caikui—for "bribery and infringing trade secrets." According to an August 13, 2009, Caijing report, Chinese security agents detained the four men, the general manager of Rio Tinto's iron ore division in Shanghai and three division colleagues, on July 5, 2009, on what Caijing described as "preliminary charges" of stealing state secrets. This crime is not clearly defined in Chinese law, providing authorities with latitude to construe it broadly when applied to information that is not public.