Rio Tinto and China

Rio Tinto went back on its word in a tense situation and ended up paying the price. In the early 2000s, China began a magnificent economic growth trend at a scale unlike anything before seen in this world. That growth, however, found itself dependent on a single valuable commodity. China, the world's biggest maker of things as varied as cabbages to door knobs, does not have enough good iron ore. But Australia did, and so was born a very rich relationship. But as iron ore prices exploded upwards, tensions erupted between China and the big mining companies. And that led to a monumentally bad situation for everyone involved. In this video, we are going to explore the tensions that would eventually lead to the Sino-Australian kerfuffle known as the Stern Hu affair.