BHP Billiton chiefs flew to Canberra last month for a confidential meeting with the Australian prime minister hours after it emerged a Chinese group had amassed a 9 per cent holding in Rio Tinto, which BHP wants to buy in one of the world’s largest takeover bids.

Details of the meeting between Don Argus, BHP’s chairman, Marius Kloppers, the chief executive, and Kevin Rudd were reported yesterday for the first time in Australia and later confirmed by the prime minister’s office.

The talks underline the lengths to which the country’s biggest corporation is prepared to go in order to convince the government of the merits of it linking with Rio – and of the threat posed by the Chinese interloper.

Aluminium Corporation of China (Chinalco), the state-owned aluminium group, said last month it had joined forces with Alcoa of the US to spend $14bn on its stake in Rio.

The raid carried out on Rio’s London share register caught both BHP and Rio by surprise and came days before BHP launched its hostile $147bn offer.

A person close to the Anglo-Australian miner said that BHP was attempting to get the Australian government on side to prevent another party bidding for the mining group.