A moment's quite reflection, please, for Stern Hu. Rio Tinto's number two executive in China was pinched by Shanghai police in July, along with three colleagues. Initially suspected of stealing state secrets – a charge later downgraded to violating commercial secrets and bribery – he remains behind bars. Last month, Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs said that the investigation into Mr Hu, born in Tianjin in 1963 but an Australian citizen for the past 15 years, had been extended to mid-January.

As much as authorities tried to portray this as a routine case of suspected espionage, it was always more than that. The detention came a month after Rio rejected a $19.5bn proposal from state-owned Chinalco – in what would have been China's biggest ever outbound investment – and during an unusually intense round of negotiations over the supply of iron ore to the country's state-owned steel mills. In that context, Mr Hu's treatment seemed to border on vindictive: denied consular access for almost a week and detained without an arrest warrant or formal charges for more than a month.

The Anglo-Australian miner has done its best to smooth over relations, stressing that shipments of iron ore and coal to China were unaffected, and that relations with Chinalco – its jilted suitor – were improving. Rio and China have both appointed new chief negotiators for the current round of talks due to end in April. And the lesser charges mean that the case appears to be proceeding relatively swiftly: American geologist Xue Feng, a native of Xi'an, has been held for more than two years in Beijing on suspicion of stealing state secrets. But in a year in which China's immaculate pageantry showed how far it had come, Mr Hu was a one-man reminder of how far it still had to go.