解決中國大陸的難題
在我生活在中國的二十多年中，還從來沒有見過外資企業象今天這樣憤怒和迷茫。這種憎恨根本不是源於互聯網檢查、網絡間諜、那些導致谷歌1月12日威脅退出中國大陸，或者那些因為谷歌事件帶來的、有關人民自由和政府控制等價值觀念上的衝突。憤怒的原因，是因為自從經濟危機把美國和歐洲推入困境、把中共扭捏的推向世界舞台的中心時，外資企業覺得中共排外的思想和政策在日益膨脹、日益加劇。
阿波羅網來稿首發 http://hk.aboluowang.com
參加公司總執行長的晚宴時，大家的對話全都是圍繞着中共官員和中國商業夥伴們是如何的傲慢和無禮。一長串的故事包括對方故意前後不一，執行規定不透明，肆無忌憚的偷竊知識產權，政府通過工會和中共基層組織滲透西方大公司，利用暗算的產品標準和檢測公然阻止產品進入市場，政治化的法院和政府機構幾乎永遠都偏向中國大陸的企業，別出心裁、選擇性的實施世貿組織的規定等等，不一而足。
在中國大陸的外資企業對中國大陸老百姓和他們艱辛取得的成就懷有深深的敬意和情感。但許多外企高管都在捫心自問，他們是否被中共的體制給弄昏了頭。外企是中國大陸的最佳公民，不得不給那些被強拉建立婚姻關係的中國大陸合資夥伴們提供大量的資本、技術、培訓、原始碼、最佳商業管理的規範，和帶有知識產權的產品。他們也出資建立學校、孤兒院、災後重建項目、海外獎學金、以及多種多樣的扶貧項目。但現在，中國大陸市場對他們來說越來越重要了，但中國大陸對他們則越來越漠不關心。越來越難進的中國大陸市場是他們最現實的擔憂。雖然許多公司在向前看，但他們夜不能寐，擔心他們的合作夥伴也許會變成一個猛獸，他們自己的技術和特長會在世界範圍內反咬他們一口，被那些受到補貼的巨型國企以低價策略的產品擊敗自己。
與此同時，我發現中共政府和企業界也從來沒有象現在這樣坐立不安、惶惶不可終日。它們的不安是缺乏安全感而產生的傲慢無理。全球金融風暴和中華人民共和國日益上升的國際地位，使得那些不敢冒風險、不喜歡突發事件、在統治中共的技術官僚們，放棄了原來精心擬訂的國家發展規劃。
中共國家主席胡錦濤和國務院總理溫家寶承受的壓力簡直太大了。他們膽戰心驚的要渡過他們任期的最後兩年，要確保8 %或更高的增長率，並嚴厲鎮壓任何可能攪局的異議者。中國大陸的老百姓一般來說還挺滿意，但共產黨領導人則對民眾的過高期望嚇破了膽。四十歲以下的人，都是獨生子女政策的後代，他們沒有經歷過毛澤東時代的貧困和動盪。他們往往被寵着，非常不耐煩，並且要求很高。他們覺得經濟高速成長是生活的基本狀態，獲取訊息則是民眾的權力。中國大陸的富人階層，則是改革開放強有力的反對者。他們都是地方的既得利益者，想着要繼續能夠受益，而堅決反對外來的競爭。
中共領導人在空閒時間裏，可能暗地裏想着解決嚴重的腐敗問題、嚴重的污染問題、浪費成性的醫療體制、七零八落的社會服務、根深蒂固的產能過剩、和人口的老化等問題。他們幾乎沒有多餘的能力，也沒有任何經驗或者欲望，想要看遠一點，成為世界所期望的、能夠超越中共自己的需要的世界級領導人。
所以呢，中國大陸人和外國人，都有足夠的麻煩和可以理解的恐懼。谷歌只是這個逐漸加劇的分歧的一個反映。問題的本質，是如何在中國大陸和由美國領銜的西方發達國家之間，尋求政治和經濟的重新平衡。但這很難做到。中共和美國都有先例，非常善於把內部政策的失敗歸咎於外界的因素。兩國互相指責的政客和捶胸頓足的愛國主義者，會使得理性的討論幾乎沒有可能。但現在的確是太平洋兩岸的領導人，趁事情還沒有發展到失去控制之際，從沉重的國內問題中抬起頭來，解決中國大陸與外國企業、與發達國家日益惡化的關係問題的時時候了。有一點是肯定的，他們肯定不會在谷歌上搜尋到這個問題的答案。
==================== =
The China Fix
By James McGregor
In my more than two decades in China, I have seldom seen the foreign business community more angry and disillusioned than it is today. Such sentiment goes beyond the Internet censorship and cyberspying that led to Google's Jan. 12 threat to bail out of China, or the clash of values (freedom vs. control) implied by the Google case. It is about the perception that antiforeign attitudes and policies in China have been growing and hardening since the global economic crisis pushed the U.S. and Europe into a tailspin and launched China to its very uncomfortable stardom on the world stage.
Visiting CEOs' banquet-table chatter is now dominated by swapping tales of arrogant and insolent Chinese bureaucrats and business partners. The litany includes purposefully inconsistent and nontransparent enforcement of regulations, rampant intellectual-property theft, state penetration of multinationals through union and Communist Party organizations, blatant market impediments through rigged product standards and testing, politicized courts and agencies that almost always favor local companies, creative and selective enforcement of WTO requirements ... The list goes on.
The foreign business community in China has deep respect and affection for the Chinese people and their hard-earned success. But more than a few foreign business leaders are asking themselves if they have been bamboozled by the system. Multinationals have been solid citizens in China, handing over heaps of capital, technology, training, source code, best practices and proprietary products to joint-venture partners they were forced into bed with. They have funded schools, orphanages, disaster reconstruction, overseas scholarships and all manner of poverty-alleviation programs. But now that the China market matters more to them, it appears that China couldn't care less. Increasingly difficult China-market access is the immediate worry. But many are looking ahead and losing sleep over expectations that their onetime partners are morphing into predators — and that their own technology and know-how will be coming back at them globally in the form of cut-price products from subsidized state-owned behemoths.
At the same time, I have also seldom seen the Chinese government and business community more unsettled and uncertain. Theirs is an arrogance borne of insecurity. The global financial chaos and China's rocketing global status threw off the meticulous national development schedules carefully crafted by the risk-averse and surprise-allergic engineers who run the Party.
The pressures on Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao are overwhelming. They are white-knuckling their way through their final two years in office, focusing on 8% or higher growth and crushing any dissent that could derail it. The Chinese people are generally pretty happy, but the Party leadership is terrified of their outsized expectations. People under age 40, the progeny of the one-child policy, didn't live through Maoist poverty and upheaval. They are pampered, impatient and demanding. They consider exponential growth as a basic benchmark of life, and access to information to be a civil right. China's rich are powerful opponents of further reform and opening. They made money the local way and are determined to block foreign competition so this can continue.
In their spare time, China's leaders are reaching under the carpet to tackle the country's endemic corruption, epidemic pollution, emaciated health care, shredded social services, entrenched industrial overcapacity and swiftly aging population, to name a few. They have little remaining bandwidth, and no experience or desire to be the visionary and magnanimous world leaders who can look beyond China's own often desperate needs that the world wants them to be.
So both Chinese and non-Chinese have legitimate challenges and understandable phobias. Google is just a proxy in this intensifying dispute. It's really about rebalancing the economic and political dynamic between China and the developed world, with the U.S. as the key negotiator for the West. It won't be easy. China and the U.S. are past masters at blaming their domestic policy failings on outsiders. Finger-pointing politicians and chest-beating nationalists in the two nations will make rational discussion nearly impossible. Yet it is time for leaders on both sides of the Pacific to lift their heads above overwhelming domestic concerns and fix China's deteriorating relationship with foreign business and the developed world before things get out of control. One thing's certain: they won't find the answers through Google.
