Last month, after the arrest of Australian citizen Stern Hu, Rio Tinto's top negotiator in Shanghai, and three other Rio staff, China's foreign ministry spokesman defended the action by saying that there was “solid evidence that proves Hu has collected and stolen state secrets,” while at the same time asserting that China is “a country under the rule of law.”
The spokesman evidently had no compunction pronouncing Hu guilty even before the holding of a trial and yet declared in the next breath that the country was one where the rule of law holds sway. What China has today is not rule of law but rather rule by law, with the government applying the law selectively as an instrument against its critics while not needing to behave lawfully itself.
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