[转帖] [21012.10.06]China’s state capitalism 中国的国家资本主义

http://www.ecocn.org/thread-84001-1-1.html
China’s state capitalism
Not just tilting at windmills
China’s state-owned enterprises are increasingly getting it into trouble—abroad and at home
Oct 6th 2012 | from the print edition
中国的国家资本主义
不仅仅在手工作坊里风雨飘摇
中国国有企业国内国外四面楚歌

THIS week Barack Obama decided to block a private Chinese company from buying a wind farm near an American military installation in Oregon. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the president’s decision—and it does come suspiciously close to the American election—it fits into a pattern that should worry China’s businesspeople and rulers. In the West many of China’s best companies are treated with suspicion: Huawei, a telecoms giant, has been blocked from some markets in America, and a bid by CNOOC, a state oil firm, to buy Canada’s Nexen has raised a storm. And it is not just the West. The leaders of Myanmar, hardly democratic capitalists, have also turned against some Chinese firms (see article).
本周,奥巴马总统决定对中国某私企欲购买美国俄勒冈州军事设施附近某风力农场一事发出禁制令。且不论总统决定的对与错(怀疑这可能和美国总统大选有关),这却着实会让中国的商人和官人们捏一把汗。在西方,很多很好的中国企业备受质疑。比如电讯巨头——华为公司,被美国很多商场拒之门外;国有石油公司——中国海洋石油公司,投标购买加拿大石油公司Nexen一事也引起轩然大波。何止在西方如此,就连算不上民主资本家的缅甸领导人也仇视一些中国企业。

Behind this suspicion lies the perception—strengthened by the re-emergence of the country’s vast state-owned enterprises (SOEs)—that China’s businesses are too close to the Communist Party. Many in the regime believe the SOEs’ growth has helped China’s rise. The reverse is true: the SOEs have cashed in on China’s progress. Far more importantly, they now look sure to hinder it in the future.
这种质疑之后还存在这样的观点——受中国广大国企再繁荣的依托庇护,中国企业和共产党关系甚于亲密。体制内不少人也认为国企的发展带动了整个中国的崛起。反之亦然:国企也受惠于国家发展。更为重要的是,未来国企似会阻碍国家前进的步伐。

Retreat of the state
国家的退缩

In the 1990s, there was a logic behind promoting the SOEs. Having seen post-Soviet state assets fall into the hands of oligarchs, China built up a select group of SOEs with cheap loans, land and energy, so that the wealth would remain with the party. The best of them are world-class. The combined profits of Sinopec and China Mobile in 2009 were greater than the profits of China’s 500 largest private firms together. Long-term and ambitious, the SOEs increasingly attract the country’s best graduates. They contributed heavily to the investment splurge that rescued China’s economy from the global financial crisis, contributing to a process critics call guojin mintui; “the state advances, the private sector retreats”. The party has encouraged the consolidation of SOEs in important industries, and protected them from foreign competition (see article).
上世纪九十年代,中国在拉动国企发展问题上还存在这样的逻辑:亲见前苏联后期国家财产落入寡头政治统治者手中后,中国政府以低贷款,低房价以及低廉的能源价格建立了一批优良国企,这样财富仍属共产党所有。这其中还包括一些世界级的大型国企。中石化和中国移动2009年的利润加起来比中国私企500强的总和还多。中国国企长久以来越发吸引着这个国家最优秀的大学毕业生,野心勃勃。他们肆意进行大规模投资,使中国经济脱身于全球金融危机之外,形成了评论家眼中所谓的“国进民退”进程,即“国企大胆前进,私企瑟缩后退”。共产党还鼓励国企巩固其在关键行业的地位,并保护其免遭外来竞争。

In many ways the state suffers as a result. An independent Chinese study has found that if all the government’s grants and hidden subsidies were taken away, the SOEs would lose money. They pay hardly any dividends back to the government. Instead much of the wealth has ended up enriching SOEs’ chiefs and political patrons, frequently sons and daughters of Communist Party leaders, who are so powerful that they often outrank the heads of bodies supposed to regulate them. Money that could be much more efficiently allocated is instead reinvested into SOEs, reinforcing their strength, and their bosses’ fortunes. These vested interests are in turn some of the most strident opponents of political and economic reform, since they are the ones with the most to lose.
很多情况下,国家本身遭受损失。一份独立的中国报告显示,如果取消全部的政府拨款和隐形资助的话,国企就面临着亏本。他们也很难分红给政府。相反,诸多财富最后却鼓了国企领导和政府资助者的腰包,而这些人往往是党内领导人的子女,他们的权力如此之大,常辐射于其相应管理机构之外。本可得到优化配置的财富又投进国企,结果是长了这些人的权力,长了他们老板的财富。而他们又转而利用这些既得利益对政治,经济改革进行强硬的反对,因为改革中他们的损失会是最多的。

The SOEs’ power harms foreign firms in China, which are increasingly frozen out by regulatory or market-access barriers. Abroad, the SOEs also cause problems—and not just suspicions in America. Myanmar’s leaders have tired of the plundering of their country by unaccountable Chinese SOEs—one reason for their recent decision to open to the West. Most important of all, SOEs damage small and medium-sized Chinese enterprises, which are starved of money. This deprives China of the bamboo capitalists whose drive and innovation is needed more than ever now that economic growth is slowing.
国企权力过大也不利于在华外企。这些外企不断被管理和市场机制上的壁垒所冻结。在国外,国企同样麻烦上身,不仅在美国备受质疑,缅甸领导人也已经对他们国家受不负责任的中国企业摧残一事感到腻烦——他们近期所作决定的原因之一就是为了向西方敞开大门。重中之重在于国企危及中国极度缺乏资金的中小型企业。这消弱了中国的竹资人士,他们的前进力和创新力在经济发展滞缓期尤具必要性。

The road China has taken from a centrally planned economy has been brave. The former prime minister, Zhu Rongji, in the late 1990s, took a sledgehammer to the weakest SOEs. But, more than a decade later, it is worrying to see those that survived tightening their grip. The party needs to take on the vested interests, start to privatise SOEs, open their sectors to competition and allow the private sector once again to help pull China forward. Some reformers in China know this must happen. In April the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, gave a speech attacking the monopoly power of big state banks. But he is stepping down, and it is not clear who might champion the cause in the new leadership that takes office in November. Hardliners fear that the survival of the Communist Party is at stake. But so is the economic miracle of the past 30 years.
中国摆脱计划经济体制后所走的道路是一条勇敢之路。上世纪九十年代,前总理朱镕基对薄弱国企进行了大刀阔斧的改革。但十多年后,我们看到,令人担忧的事,那些从计划经济走过来的人正不断勒紧他们的控制绳索。共产党当务之急是接手既得利益,对国企进行私有化改革,使之进入竞争市场,并再一次允许私企拉动中国向前进。中国的一些改革派认识到了这样做的必然性。今年四月,温家宝总理发表演讲,抨击了大型国有银行的垄断行为。只可惜他任期将满,至于十一月谁会执掌新门尚不明朗。一些忠实党员担心共产党的存在岌岌可危,但30年来的经济奇迹尚且不是如此?
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