Sometime later today (Monday) we’ll know just how merciful a Chinese court can be, but the smart money says Hu will get a stretch of three to five years, even with an alleged recommendation for leniency from prosecutors after his guilty plea.

More interesting than the appalling secret trial of Hu, which had all the hallmarks of the show trials once favoured by communist regimes of 50 years ago, is the trial of public opinion which now awaits the chief executive of Rio Tinto, Tom Albanese.

His is head number two on Dryblower’s checklist, which is based on a column published here on December 21 last year, and highly recommended as a starting point in understanding the mess created by Albanese and his opposite number at BHP Billiton, Marius Kloppers.

Back then, Dryblower warned loudly that Albanese and Kloppers were heading for a train wreck with their astonishingly ill-conceived plan to merge their iron ore operations in Australia’s Pilbara region.

Overlaying that deal, hatched in the heat of the global financial crisis, was the Stern Hu affair which has changed forever the way the western world views doing business with China, a country which clings to the concept of secret police vetting the movements of every citizen (with a double watch on every foreigner).

It is impossible to separate the Hu affair from the proposed BHP-Rio iron ore merger partly because the actors in both matters are identical, but also because the Chinese do not believe in coincidence.

Last year, Hu was arrested just as the proposed BHP-Rio merger was stirring deep anger in China, which saw the deal as an attempt to create a business that could dictate the future price of iron ore, effectively driving up the cost of Chinese steel.

Hu in handcuffs was a warning to all foreigners doing business in the country – it was not a coincidence.

Now consider a more recent event which dovetailed neatly with Hu’s guilty plea, a speech in Beijing by Albanese in which he effectively said that for Rio Tinto it was business as usual, as demonstrated by a deal with Chinalco involving an iron ore project in the African country of Guinea.

Some people might believe it is business as usual. Dryblower does not. Hu’s guilty plea and Albanese’s speech, within hours of each other, reeked of contrivance.

If the timing of the speech and guilty plea doesn’t convince you that secret deals are being done behind closed doors then consider the curious timing of the European Union raising fresh objections to the BHP-Rio iron ore merger, and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission appearing to change its view on the deal.

Back in December, Dryblower warned that the EU would never in a million years approve the merger because it defied the very foundations of the organisation which started life as the European Coal and Steel Community, dedicated to protecting the steel industries of six countries – with strong cartel-busting powers to prevent the cost of raw materials (iron ore and coal) being artificially manipulated by producers.

It’s the history of the EU which lies behind its disapproval of the BHP-Rio proposal, but it’s more likely to have been someone from inside Rio Tinto who woke the sleeping chaps at the ACCC and suggested they take a fresh look at the deal.

Speculation has been growing that Rio Tinto is unhappy with the terms of the iron ore merger, and what niftier way to kill it off than to have two government agencies oppose it, one in Europe and one in Australia.

Oh dear, Rio Tinto management will say to BHP Billiton, we don’t appear able to proceed.

Some people will be surprised when that happens. Dryblower will not because he reckons it’s being done deliberately as another way of appeasing the Chinese.

Where, you might now ask, does that leave Marius Kloppers? Looking pretty silly really because he’s been played along by Chinese puppet masters keen to (a) nail Hu as a warning, (b) force Albanese to kowtow, (c) get into a deal like the Guinea iron ore project at virtually no cost, and (d) kill the BHP-Rio deal – which someone in Rio Tinto may be doing for them by feeding fresh facts to the wary Europeans and the sleepy ACCC.

With Hu’s head on a stake, and Albanese next in line, it leaves Kloppers as a third potential victim from a remarkable series of management mistakes caused by not understanding European or Chinese history.

*Dryblower is a weekly column on ILN’s sister publication MiningNews.net.