【11.09.03 经济学家】中国的私有化 － 资本主义难以抬头
【中文标题】中国的私有化 － 资本主义难以抬头
【原文标题】Privatisation in China Capitalism confined
【登载媒体】经济学家
【原文链接】http://www.economist.com/node/21528262
中国的公司和其它国家的公司一样，在私有的情况下运作得最好。但是在中国，政府永远在一旁虎视眈眈。
1992年，中国的两座城市——一个在北京以南，一个在香港以北——即使以一个极为贫穷的国家标准看来，也已将近穷途末路。它们的市政府企业不但自身面临破产，还让整个城市的经济面临崩溃。诸城靠近北京，是毛泽东暴虐、专制的第四任妻子江青的出生地，她于1991年死在狱中。这个城市三分之二的收入都填入了公司的亏空里。广东省的一个小城市——顺德，也陷入了债务危机。
与此同时，北京当局越来越担忧国家的银行体系，它已经在不良账务的重压下苦苦支撑，再也无法承受更多的打击。在中央政府的默许下，诸城和顺德抛弃了教条、陈腐的法律和40年来无甚收效的政策，开始寻求新的道路。
1993年，全能的国务院用极为小心的措辞批准这两个城市进行“改制”，这意味着所有权的变化。用更直白的话来说，即使在今天，中国政府也不会直言他们曾经开始让国有公司“私有化”。他们开始第一次尝试改变政府与企业间的关系。如果江青在世，她无论如何不会同意。
顺德和诸城在一开始把它们的企业转交给员工。1997年，在国家政策发生重大变化之前，它们又把公司直接卖给社会上的企业家。顺德从此走上兴旺发达之路。在一批应运而生的企业中，一家瓶盖制造厂和一家鸭绒贸易公司变成了现在世界上最大的电器生产商，就是美的和格兰仕。其它工厂就像野草一样，迅速铺满了早先的稻田和渔场。
一些成功的迹象让企业所有权改革更加迅速。1995年，国务院下达了“抓大放小”的政策。1997年，国务院批准了一项重大政策变化，所有权从中央转移到地方，目的就是为了加快私有化进程。这些变化为90年代末上台的朱镕基那些激动人心的举措提供了基础，这位总理被广泛认为改变了中国经济的走向。
朱先生的故事简洁版就是关闭了数千家企业，并打破了“铁饭碗”——群众生活水平的官方保障，目的是让中国摆脱经济低迷。在1995年到2000年之间，国有企业和国控企业从120万家下降到468000家，国有企业工作岗位数量下降了3600万——从城市就业岗位数量的59％下降到32％。
故事的完整版是，这个进程卷入了越来越多的公司，方法也一直在变化。在一些公司被改制和关闭的同时，又成立了各种各样新的公司，都有不同类型的政府背景。结果是不停地在实验各种激励方式和架构模型。
在一个2004年私有财产才受宪法保护的国家里，在一个生产型财产的所有权依然不明朗的国家里，私有化始终是一个惹争议的话题。尽管很多充满活力的纯私有企业已经遍地开花，但是它们都尽量远离聚光灯。中国在私有化问题上的多方试验产生了若干类型的公司，它们都与政府有密切的关系。（见下表）
私有化分类
第一种类型包括大型的银行、运输、能源和电信企业，它们曾经是——在某种程度上现在依然是——政府部委。麦肯锡中国的主席Gordon Orr说这是现代社会政府企业的“1.0版本”。尽管这些企业在海外也赢得了广泛的关注，但它们中的私有企业或许只占1％。
政府与其它大部分类型的企业之间的关系更为间接和微妙。第二种类型是私人公司（一般是外国公司）与政府支持的企业所组成的合资公司。第三种类型主要是私人企业，不是国有企业，但国家依然保持其强大的影响力。近年来，另一种类型的企业开始出现，政府的角色是风险投资者：地方政府直接投资，或者建立基金来支持一些它们认为将带来就业机会和财政回报的企业。
让我们先从这些庞然大物说起。这些巨型公司中的大部分已经被转换成类似传统模样的商业模式，它们经历了重组、重新集资和改换门庭，少部分普通股已经向公众销售，并且可以在证券市场上交易。他们的组织结构中明确存在着董事会、首席执行官、首席财务官和其他首席官员。它们也会发布财务报告，其中的数字经过精心编辑，一般还有一封大老板措辞含混的公开信。它们逐渐向世界排名首位攀升，成为了中国企业上升实力的代表。
然而，几乎没有人认为它们是纯粹的私有企业。公开发售的股权一般不超过30％。它们可以从国有银行得到内含津贴的贷款，它们取得土地的成本极为低廉，通常还享受着受保护的垄断地位。它们迟早会被政府直接控制，政府委任这些公司的高层管理人员，包括一名党委书记领导下的党支部。
内部人士说，这些公司的所作所为通常不会直接体现出政府作为管理者的命令，这些人唯一的标准是能否获得政府的批准。一个心怀野心的管理者的职业前景取决于党的组织部——它有权决定官员的任免——以及公司的大老板是否能在国家部委中越爬越高。这中间或许已经没有了直接控制的权力，但是间接命令依然存在。
这种模式让政府依然可以控制对实体经济至关重要的企业，尤其是它在具体执行一些大的资本投入项目，比如高速铁路、钢厂、电信网络和港口。
然而，走这条道路是要付出代价的，比如贪污受贿的机会就层出不穷。政策制定者与实体公司之间的关系暧昧，让一些问题（包括安全问题和对经济的影响问题）被忽视。缺少商业导向，导致公司内部大量员工人浮于事。在公司上层，那些有关系的孩子总能找到工作轻松、待遇优厚的岗位。而且，这些占尽政策优势的企业排挤调了其它的私人企业。
在中国国内，我们很难相信这些巨型公司——银行、电信、石油——吸引顾客的原因是它们的服务质量，而不是它们独一无二的地位和缺少竞争对手的现状。在国外，尽管其规模无比庞大，但它们依然没有实现中国政府对它们的期望——登顶全球商业之巅。部分原因就在于这些巨人与政府之间的关系限制了它们模仿外国跨国公司的程度，比如引入不同国家的高级管理人员。
90年代末，当时的IBM国际首席运营官John Thompson和其它IBM人员在北京参加一个会议，他们被要求造访中国主席江泽民。江先生问IBM的人，一个大型公司怎样进行集中管理。他还问，如果中国的部委都被私有化，公司和美国的法庭如何处理“腐败”的问题。Thompson回忆，几个月之后，江先生问IBM的首席执行官Lou Gerstner是否可以接待一个代表团，成员主要包括中国的高层公司管理人员和一些部长。这个代表团在IBM位于纽约的教育中心访问了几天，还参观了其它一些机构，了解到美国资本主义是如何运作和被规范的。
然而，IBM与中国的庞然大物之间有着无法弥合的区别。在大部分成功的全球企业中，来自本土国家的高管最重要的一项工作之一就是，让地方管理者做好准备，将来加入到总部的高级管理层中。公司从内到外都是国际化的。但是由于中国的大型企业在本质上与政府的关系密不可分，所以其管理者必须都是中国人。
这些公司的经营情况令人难以识别，因为其周围的环境绝非正常：例如其享受的廉价贷款和特许经营权的保护，即使每天无所事事也可以产生一个漂亮的营利报表和股票收益率。2006年，三位中国学者对私有公司进行了一项广泛的研究，结果总结在新近发表的一份报告中。长江商学院的甘洁、北京大学的果岩和香港大学许成钢得出的结论是，部分股票上市销售的公司中，人均资产和赢利状况与完全未经私有化的企业没有区别。
司机还是一个好
第二类企业——合资公司——数量极少（大约只占统计数据的2％）。这些公司在成立之前，双方均有一个讨价还价的过程。通常是西方的私人合作伙伴希望进入到中国这个不断成长的经济体中，而中国要得到西方的技术作为回报。对西方人来说，合资公司明显的风险存在于：中国人一旦掌握了足够的知识，他们就会被一脚踢开。
在汽车制造领域，有若干知名的合资公司。一位汽车行业的咨询人士Michael Dunne说，把西方合作伙伴挤出市场仅仅是一个大致的计划，以此为宗旨，已经零星出现了一些微妙的举动。例如，近期政府强迫西方公司与中国合作伙伴建立具有知识产权和出口权的“本土品牌”。截止到2009年，上海汽车工业集团公司购进了它与通用汽车组建的合资公司的1％股份，成为最大股东。
甘女士、果先生和许先生发现，总体来看合资公司的财务状况与部分私有化的大型公司一样死气沉沉。然而汽车制造业是一个特例。早先的一些合资公司，比如与标致、雪铁龙和通用汽车组建的合资公司纷纷难以维系，但那已经是历史了。目前市场上有20多家合资公司，尽管难以取得准确的财务报告，但它们看起来都做得不错。
这或许是因为汽车行业的合资公司与其它行业相比，运作起来更像是私有公司，而不像国有企业。Dunne先生说，原因在于合作双方的动机更加一致。中方的高层代表无一例外地由政府指派，这些人很少懂得汽车制造。他有能力拿来利润丰厚的“政治”合同，他最终还是会回到自己的仕途中。他自然不愿意干扰一个可以提供就业、产生利润的公司运作模式。外国公司主要关注于企业的成功，双方的利益是一致的，或者至少是不冲突的。
Dunne先生说，这种现象也可以解释为什么中方合作伙伴一直没能成功地推广自有品牌，尽管它们有机会接触西方的技术，有能力获得无限的资源和强大的政治影响力。中国企业管理人员的职业前景与政府挂钩，和汽车产业无关。
私人管理，党施加影响
第三类完全私有的公司属于最成功的类型：它们中的大部分公司都归管理人员所有。根据三位学者的研究结果，管理层持有股份的公司比国有大型企业、合资公司和通过其它方式私有化的企业（比如出租、出售给外人或者员工）运作得更好。这或许和另一个发现有关：政府控制的力度在这一类企业中最小。这些公司中，只有1％的公司有国家超过20％的股份，而市场平均值是19％。只有在16％的公司中，政府有“强大”的决策控制权，市场平均值是31％。政府为了获得更好的经营成绩而放弃了持股。然而，它还是在通过党代表等方式施加其影响力。
我们可以看一看政府在三家中国最著名的汽车公司中的角色：比亚迪、奇瑞和吉利。它们依然处于政府的羽翼保护之下，在省政府级别得到了巨额的财政资助（中国西部大部分汽车公司都得到了类似的资助）。如果失去了政府的支持，这些公司的领导人不会继续在位。但它们与那些大型企业和合资公司不同，并不受政府的控制。它们的老板并非接受了政治任命，而是追求商业成功、富有魅力的商人。
在其它产业中也有类似的公司，比如中兴和华为——电信设备巨头、PC机生产商联想（中国社会科学院持有大量股份）和电器公司TCL。这个类型中的企业数量在逐渐增长，尽管大部分公司的名气还及不上这几家。这里有一个原则，它们都是在“战略性”的行业中，也就是与能源有关的行业，包括风力、太阳能和能源储存技术，还包括医疗设备、制药技术等。这些公司受到了免除外部竞争的保护，可以获得研发津贴，以及国家采购的优先选择权。有些外国医疗设备公司的人说，与中国政府有关的客户提出了非常高的付款要求——货到1年后付款。只有在国有银行拿到超级信用的本地供应商才有能力参与竞标。
私有企业的成功成长在市场上获得了广泛的认可，与此同时，国有企业明显缺少了相应的光环。最明显的例子是在互联网产业中，中国国有的新闻机构有足够的资源和内容来赢得客户，但市场上的反响微乎其微。而那些非国有的私人互联网公司则取得了压倒性的优势，这些公司的管理者通常都在国外接受教育。中国的互联网业竞争激烈（尽管外国公司遇到了一些进入市场的障碍），迅速反应和机智转变是取胜的关键。员工常常会以西方公司的方式得到丰厚的奖励——股权。这些公司大部分都在海外上市，或者由外国投资者支持，所以从技术上来讲，它们都应算作是外国公司，这可是对中国的莫大讽刺。
即使这些公司也在很大程度上要看政府的脸色，它们所效仿的西方公司在中国纷纷遭受到了各种阻力。中国最大的互联网搜索引擎百度，在以前就是靠盗取西方娱乐模式而起家（译者注：疑为腾讯）。电子商务运营商阿里巴巴曾经利用中国法律攫取了雅虎一大块电子支付产品的股权——支付宝。但它们与官场的关系也并非一帆风顺。北京的共产党官员最近警告一家社交媒体公司新浪，说它删除得罪党的言论的速度太慢。国家电视台CCTV最近一系列节目都在批评百度的商业模式。
回归民间
第三类企业的成功对第四类企业的发展起到了促进的作用。省市级政府成立了数百家具有政府背景的基金，投资新兴产业。据Z-Ben研究咨询公司的数据显示，其中最大的是国开金融公司，这家成立于2009年的私募股权基金已经筹集了400亿元人民币（63亿美元），其目标是筹集600亿元人民币。
这些官方投资者有时也会邀请外资伙伴加入，包括大型的私募集团，比如黑石、凯雷、TPG、和Infinity集团。一家以色列风投公司有12家基金子公司，其中10家与中国城市有直接的关系。它在2004年通过以色列和中国政府，以及其它私募方式获得的资金，成功创立了多家公司，把中国的生产和以色列的技术结合在一起。
从理论上说，让政府成为单纯的资金投入者要比公司运作者有利很多，就像19年前在顺德和诸城所发生的事情一样。因为公司的经营者是商人，而不是官僚。在实践中，事情并非如此顺利。市政府支持的企业为当地提供了就业机会，这影响到了当地人的利益关系，在哪里建厂？在哪里搞研发？更糟糕的是，中国的私募产业成为了有权势官员的子女们的就业温床。
同样麻烦的事情是，这些公共资金的运作和回报情况无人了解。大部分应当处于理智监管的范围，为市政府带来收入，为居民提供就业机会，但是仍有一部分落入了财务黑洞。更加令人不安的是，与中国最有活力的经济成分——真正的私人企业相比，它们得到了当地政府更加密切关注。
总而言之，这些对政府行为的阐述反映出中国政府不但全盘掌控了这个国家的经济，而且还使用采取微妙的方式扩大其控制范围。最终，它们会建立起一系列大规模的经济产物，让中国经济，鉴于中国的规模，也让世界经济卷入其中。有些人把这当作一个可以效仿的模板。在顺德和诸城事件之后，中国已经走过了一条漫长的道路，但政府依然是前进的指路人。
原文：
Chinese companies, like companies everywhere, do best when they are privately run. In China, however, the state is never far away
IN 1992 two Chinese cities, one just south of Beijing, the other just north of Hong Kong, were in desperate shape even by the standards of a desperately poor country. Their municipally run companies were in danger of bankrupting not only themselves but the cities too. Zhucheng, near Beijing, was best known as the birthplace of Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong’s despotic, doctrinaire fourth wife, who died in jail in 1991. Two-thirds of its revenues were being eaten by corporate losses. Shunde, a small city in Guangdong, was buried in debt.
Meanwhile, the authorities in Beijing were becoming concerned that the state banking system, already creaking under the weight of bad debt, would be unable to bear even more. With the quiet acquiescence of the central government, Zhucheng and Shunde ignored doctrine, old laws and 40 years of failed policies in search of a better approach.
In a carefully constructed phrase subsequently endorsed, in 1993, by the all-powerful State Council, the two cities engaged in gaizhi, which means “changing the system” and implies the diversification of ownership. Put more simply, in words that even now the Chinese government cannot bring itself to utter, they started to privatise many of their companies. They thus began one of the Chinese state’s first attempts to change its relationship with its enterprises. Jiang Qing would not have approved.
At first Shunde and Zhucheng turned their firms over to employees. In 1997, again before a broader shift in national policy, the two began selling companies directly to existing managements. Shunde, in particular, thrived. Two of the companies that emerged, a maker of bottle caps and a trader of duck feathers, are now among the world’s largest appliance manufacturers, Midea and Galanz. Other factories have spread like wild flowers among what were once rice fields and fish farms.
Early signs of success led to modification of the rules on the ownership of companies. In 1995 the State Council endorsed a policy to “retain the large, release the small”. In 1997 it approved a huge shift of ownership from the central government to municipalities with the explicit goal of expediting privatisations. These changes provided the foundation for the dramatic efforts in the late 1990s of Zhu Rongji, the then prime minister, that are reputed to have remade China’s economy.
The short version is that Mr Zhu closed thousands of companies and broke the “iron rice bowl”, a guarantee of living standards for the masses, in an effort to shake China out of economic lethargy. Between 1995 and 2001 the number of state-owned and state-controlled enterprises fell from 1.2m to 468,000 and the number of jobs in the urban state sector fell by 36m—or from 59% to 32% of total urban employment.
A longer version is that the process involved many more companies and has never ceased, and that the method has changed constantly. As some companies were transformed or closed, others were created, with various forms of state backing. The result has been non-stop experimentation with incentives and structures.
Privatisation remains a thorny issue in a country where private property became a constitutional right only in 2004 and where the right to own productive assets remains unclear. Many vibrant, purely private companies have sprung up despite this uncertainty, but take care to stay out of the limelight. Meanwhile, China’s various experiments with privatisation have created several categories of companies which still have close ties to the state (see table).
A taxonomy of privatisation
The first category comprises the vast banks and transport, energy and telecoms providers that were, and to some extent still are, government ministries. Gordon Orr, chairman of McKinsey’s China business, calls this “version 1.0” of the modern state-controlled company. Although these entities have gained a lot of attention outside China, they account for perhaps 1% of privatised companies.
The relationship between the state and most other businesses is less direct and more subtle. A second category contains joint ventures between private (often foreign) companies and firms backed by the state. A third consists of companies that are largely in private rather than state ownership, but in which the state remains influential nevertheless. Recently another class has started to emerge, in which the state plays the role of a venture capitalist: local governments invest in or create funds that back companies that they hope will bring both jobs and financial returns.
Start with the behemoths. Most of these huge companies have been turned into vaguely conventional-looking businesses. They have been restructured, recapitalised and rebranded. A minority of their equity has been sold to the public and is traded on the stockmarket. They have recognisable corporate structures with boards of directors, chief executives, chief financial officers and sundry other chiefs; and they publish financial reports with carefully presented accounts and dull letters from the bosses. They are steadily climbing up global rankings, symbols of China’s growing industrial heft.
However, few contend that they are truly private companies. The proportion of shares issued is typically no more than 30%. They receive subsidised loans from state-controlled banks, they are given land cheaply and they usually enjoy a sheltered monopoly or oligopoly. Control by the government is never far away. The state appoints their senior managers—including a Communist Party committee headed by a party secretary.
Often, say insiders, these companies’ doings reflect not so much the explicit orders of the government as managers’ anticipation of what will earn its endorsement. An ambitious manager’s career prospects depend on the party’s Organisation Department, which oversees official appointments—and company bosses frequently move on to senior jobs in the ministries that oversee them. Direct control may have been severed, but rule by inferred command continues.
This model provides the government with continuing control of enterprises critical to the functioning of the economy. In particular, it facilitates the execution of big capital projects such as high-speed railways, steel plants, telecommunications networks and ports.
However, this comes at a cost. There are plenty of opportunities for graft. A close relationship between regulators and operating companies can mean that problems (with safety, as well as economic matters) are overlooked. The lack of commercial orientation frequently means that too many employees throughout the company are unproductive. At the top, there are often cushy, well-paid jobs for the children of the well connected. And the commercial and regulatory privileges of these companies crowd out private alternatives.
At home, it is hard to argue that any of the really big Chinese firms—the banks, the telecoms firms and petrol companies—draw customers because of any special appeal rather than their ubiquity and a lack of competitors. Abroad, despite their size, they are yet to become the global champions that the Chinese government would like them to be, even though the Chinese have sought for many years to learn from foreign corporations. This may be partly because the Chinese giants’ ties to the state limit the extent to which they can imitate foreign multinationals, with senior managers from many countries.
In the late 1990s John Thompson, then head of IBM’s international operations, and some colleagues attending a conference in Beijing were asked to visit Jiang Zemin, the president of China. Mr Jiang asked the IBMers how such a big company was managed centrally. He also asked how corporations and the American courts dealt with “corruption”—a worry, said Mr Jiang, when Chinese ministries were being privatised. Some months later, Mr Thompson recalls, Mr Jiang asked Lou Gerstner, IBM’s chief executive, if the company would play host to a delegation of newly minted Chinese chief executives and some ministers. The group spent several days at IBM’s executive-education centre in New York state. They then visited other organisations to learn more about how American capitalism was run and regulated.
Yet there was an unbridgeable gap between IBM and China’s behemoths. In most successful global companies, a priority for executives from the home country is to prepare local managers who may one day accede to senior jobs at headquarters. The company becomes international inside as well as out. But because the Chinese giants are still in essence tied to the state, their leaders must remain Chinese.
Evidence of how these entities have performed is muddy because so much of their environment is distorted: for example, given cheap enough money and strong enough protection for their franchise, even corporate sluggards can show good profits and return on equity. However, in 2006 three Chinese academics began a vast study of the performance of privatised companies, summarised in a recent working paper*. Jie Gan of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, Yan Guo of Peking University and Chenggang Xu of the University of Hong Kong conclude that the return on assets and profitability per employee for companies that have undergone partial share offerings is indistinguishable from those that were not privatised at all.
One driver better than two
The second category of firms, joint ventures, is also small in number (2% of the academics’ sample). Such ventures involve a bargain between the two sides. Often the private partner is a Western company hoping to gain access to a huge and growing economy. In return the Chinese gain Western know-how. For the Westerners, this involves obvious risks beyond the usual differences of opinion in a joint venture: that they will be pushed aside once the Chinese have acquired their knowledge.
In carmaking, where there have been several prominent joint ventures, a squeeze-out of the Western partner was part of the initial plan, says Michael Dunne, a car-industry consultant, and subtle moves along these lines emerge sporadically. Recently, for example, the government has pushed the Western companies to form “indigenous brand” joint ventures with intellectual-property and export rights. And at the end of 2009, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation bought an additional 1% of its venture with General Motors, gaining majority control.
Ms Gan, Mr Guo and Mr Xu find that, overall, joint ventures have yielded similarly lacklustre financial results to the partially privatised behemoths. However, carmaking appears to be an exception. Early ventures involving Peugeot-Citroën and General Motors flopped, but that is now ancient history. More than 20 ventures are currently in existence and although financial information is hard to come by, they seem to be doing well.
This may be because in cars joint ventures have been run more as private companies and less as state-owned entities, when compared with other industries. An explanation, says Mr Dunne, lies in the incentives of the two sides. The senior Chinese representative, inevitably appointed by the government, is rarely a car person. He brings valuable political contacts and is likely to move back to a political job eventually. Meanwhile he has little interest in disrupting a venture that produces profits and jobs. Foreign carmakers are interested chiefly in the success of the company. The two sides’ interests turn out to be aligned, or at least not in conflict.
These same incentives, says Mr Dunne, also explain why the efforts of the Chinese joint-venture partners to develop their own brands have yet to produce much success, despite their access to Western technology, vast resources and political pull. The careers of the Chinese partners are tied to the state, not the car market.
Private management, party influence
The third group, largely in private hands, contains the most successful privatised companies: the half that ended up in the hands of their managers. According to the three academics, management buy-outs have done much better than behemoths, joint ventures or firms privatised through other methods (such as leases or sales to outsiders or employees). This probably has much to do with another finding: that the degree of government control declined most in this group of companies. In only 1% of these firms did the state have a shareholding of more than 20%, against a sample average of 19%. And in only 16% of them did the state have “strong control” of corporate decision-making, against 31% overall. The state has thus forgone ownership in an effort to achieve better results. It does, however, continue to exert influence, notably through party representatives.
Consider the state’s involvement with the three Chinese car companies that have done most to build their brands: BYD, Chery and Geely. They are still under the state’s wing, being thought to receive ample financial help from the provinces where they operate (though much the same could be said of many carmakers in the West). Their leaders surely would not last if the state disapproved of them. Yet they are not state-controlled, unlike the behemoths or the Chinese partners in joint ventures. The bosses are not political appointees but charismatic businessmen in pursuit of commercial goals.
There are similar ventures in other industries: ZTE and Huawei, two telecoms-equipment giants; Lenovo, a maker of PCs, in which the Chinese Academy of Sciences has a large minority stake; and TCL, an electronics firm. The number of companies in this group continues to swell, even if they are less well known than these. As a rule, they are in industries designated as “strategic”—notably anything to do with energy, be it wind, solar or stored—and can also be found in medical equipment, drugs and technology. Such companies benefit from protection against foreign encroachment, research-and-development subsidies, and subsidised purchases from state customers. Someone involved with a foreign health-care company says that buyers connected with the Chinese state demand such generous terms—with payment delayed for up to a year—that only domestic providers, backed by accommodating credit from state banks, can bid for orders.
The fostering of successful private companies becomes particularly attractive in markets in which state entities have plainly been found wanting. The clearest example is the internet, in which China’s state-controlled news providers and broadcasters have the resources and content to succeed but have failed to create much of a buzz. From private internet companies, which were never state-owned, the buzz is deafening. Their managers have often trained abroad. Competition is rampant—although foreign companies face impediments—and quick wits are essential for success. Employees often receive a significant amount of compensation in that most Western of forms: shares or share options. Many of these companies, because of their listings in overseas markets, or backing from foreign investors, could technically be considered foreign, a cause of some scathing criticism in China.
Yet even these companies depend on the good graces of the state. The Western firms that some of them imitated find obstacles in their way in China. Baidu, China’s leading internet-search company, profited hugely in the past from being a conduit for pirated Western entertainment. Alibaba, a facilitator of e-commerce, has used Chinese ownership laws to take a large slice of Yahoo!’s valuable stake in its electronic-payment company, Alipay. Relations with officialdom are not always smooth. Beijing’s Communist Party chief recently warned Sina, a social-media firm, that it was too slow to delete remarks that displeased the party. And recent programmes on CCTV, the state broadcaster, have criticised Baidu’s business methods.
Back to the cities
The success of this third group of companies has encouraged the development of the fourth. Officials in cities and provinces have created hundreds of municipally backed funds to invest in promising ventures. According to Z-Ben Advisors, a research and consulting firm, the biggest of these, CDB Capital, a private-equity fund established only in 2009, has raised 40 billion yuan ($6.3 billion) and has a target of 60 billion yuan.
Some of these official investors have brought in foreign partners, including big private-equity firms such as Blackstone, Carlyle and TPG. Infinity Group, an Israeli venture-capital firm, has 12 funds, ten of which have direct ties to different Chinese cities. Its earliest effort, founded in 2004 with money from the Israeli and Chinese governments and private sources, has had much success creating companies combining Chinese manufacturing and Israeli technology.
In theory, making the state into a purely financial investor rather than an operating partner, as in Shunde and Zhucheng 19 years ago, should be beneficial: entrepreneurs, not bureaucrats, run the business. Practice is rarely so neat. Cities back companies that provide local jobs. That affects acquisitions and disposals, where factories are built and where research takes place. Worse, China’s private-equity industry has become another lucrative billet for the children of powerful officials.
It is also troubling that little is disclosed about the operations and returns of these public funds. Many may be managed cleverly and provide money for municipalities and jobs for their citizens; others, though, may turn out to be financial black holes. Equally troubling, they receive favourable attention from local governments, to the disadvantage of China’s most dynamic sector, its truly private companies.
Taken collectively, these iterations of state engagement reflect how China’s government has not only held on to economic control but found subtle ways to extend it. At the very least, they constitute an important series of large-scale economic experiments with implications for China’s economy and, because of China’s size, the world’s too. Some may see in this a path to follow. China has come far since the trials in Shunde and Zhucheng, but the state has always controlled the itinerary.
美国人一样监控企业，美国政府如果不同意，没有任何外国人能控股美国企业，这不过是放屁指别人的游戏罢了！ 私有化也是相对的，国家要稳定，要发展就必须把握住事关本国命脉的关键部门
美国尚且对它本国的企业保护有加，为什么中国不能？ :@:@:@ 似是而非.
一条筋思维的结果. 用右脑就容易 片面、孤立、静止的看问题。 恩恩呢恩 中国的事嘛，很简单——一抓就死，一放就乱，要找到平衡点是比较难的，要长期准确地在最佳平衡点上维持运行更难，所以会在抓与放之间摇摆，曲折前进。这就是中庸之道。老外不懂的！ 能看到这个程度，这个老外也算不错了。但还要深层的看，为什么中国要这样，未来会怎样，简单的看不容易哦。 确实很全面 除了资本主义难抬头，其他主义也是难抬头。前一阵子无政府主义抬了一些头。 沐霜 发表于 2011-9-13 18:49 static/image/common/back.gif
私有化也是相对的，国家要稳定，要发展就必须把握住事关本国命脉的关键部门
美国尚且对它本国的企业保护有 ...
你看看,你看看,意气用事了吧!美国向来就是只许自己放火,别人不能点灯的! 驴驹 发表于 2011-9-15 00:19 static/image/common/back.gif
你看看,你看看,意气用事了吧!美国向来就是只许自己放火,别人不能点灯的!
美国要放火是美国的事，和中国何干
中国要放火是中国的事，与美国何干 沐霜 发表于 2011-9-15 00:38 static/image/common/back.gif
美国要放火是美国的事，和中国何干
中国要放火是中国的事，与美国何干
山姆大叔可不这样认为,世界上的事都和美国有关,譬如说:中国人民的人权自由等等.
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