美國該如何應對中國產(chǎn)業(yè)新政？

US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross emerged last month from a visit to Beijing with a warning about China’s goals to develop robotics and other high-tech sectors, a surprising new tack given the Trump administration’s previous focus on jobs in traditional industries such as steel.

不久前，美國商務部長威爾伯•羅斯(Wilbur Ross)在訪問北京后就中國發(fā)展機器人和其他高科技行業(yè)的目標發(fā)出了警告，考慮到特朗普政府此前關注是鋼鐵等傳統(tǒng)行業(yè)的工作機會，這是一個讓人意外的新方向。

Are robots in Chinese factories about to threaten US robots’ jobs by working for lower wages? No, and even if they did, that’s not what concerns the White House. During his weekend in Beijing, Mr Ross had an earful from American business about a Chinese plan to create a range of cutting edge industries, called Made in China 2025.

中國工廠里的機器人是否會以更低的薪資威脅到美國機器人的工作機會?不會，就算會，白宮擔心的也不是這個問題。在北京的那個周末，羅斯聽取了美國企業(yè)對中國打造一系列先進產(chǎn)業(yè)的計劃的大量簡報。這個計劃名為“中國制造2025”。

Made in China 2025 is a top-down industrial policy that in its benign form unlocks loans and approvals for companies that meet Beijing’s goals to create internationally competitive industries at home. More troubling for the foreign companies complaining to Mr Ross, the favoured short-cut to “indigenous” high tech is not to develop and commercialise it but to pressure investors in China to hand over rights to the tech they’ve developed, in return for maintaining their market access in China.

中國制造2025是一個自上而下的產(chǎn)業(yè)政策，北京方面的目標是打造具有國際競爭力的本土產(chǎn)業(yè)。從良性的方向說，該政策為那些順應國家目標的公司放開貸款和審批。但對那些向羅斯訴苦的外國企業(yè)而言，更令人不安的是，邁向“自主”高新技術的受青睞的捷徑不是開發(fā)和商業(yè)化利用這類技術，而是迫使來華投資者交出它們開發(fā)的科技的相關權利，作為保持中國市場準入的交換條件。

But the unique combination of top-down planning with Beijing’s financial might makes schemes such as Made in China 2025 globally damaging to the industries it targets for reasons other than forced technology transfer. Take any product — let’s call it a sneed, after the useless knitted thing made by the greedy Once-ler in The Lorax, Dr Seuss’s environmental manifesto in rhyme.

但這種自上而下的規(guī)劃與中國雄厚財力的獨特組合，使“中國制造2025”這樣的計劃對其瞄準的行業(yè)具有全球破壞力，而原因并不是強迫技術轉(zhuǎn)移。以任何產(chǎn)品為例——讓我們借用蘇斯博士(Dr Seuss)的環(huán)保故事《老雷斯的故事》(The Lorax)中貪婪的萬斯勒(Once-ler)生產(chǎn)的毫無用處的織物Thneed之名，稱其為sneed。

In a nutshell, Chinese industrial policy works like this: the state identifies sneeds as a priority industry. Everyone and their nephew builds factories making sneeds because they know that puts them on the fast lane to bureaucratic approvals. Even better, they get easy loans because banks and private equity investors know sneeds are a favoured industry (and also, because Chinese banks hope the new money will allow the borrower to pay down outstanding debts built up making whatever was flavour of the month in the last round of policy incentives).

簡而言之，中國的產(chǎn)業(yè)政策是這樣起作用的：國家把sneed列為重點產(chǎn)業(yè)。每個人和他們的親戚開始建造sneed生產(chǎn)廠，因為他們知道這會讓他們走上獲得官僚體制批準的快車道。更妙的是，他們能夠輕松獲得貸款，因為銀行和私人股本投資者知道sneed是受到青睞的行業(yè)(此外，還因為中國的銀行希望，新貸款能夠讓借款者償還其在生產(chǎn)上一輪政策刺激的受青睞產(chǎn)品期間累積的未償還賬務)。

Pretty soon, just as in The Lorax, all the “brothers and uncles and aunts” are making sneeds too. They import new vehicles and equipment, sending prices through the roof. Foreign suppliers of the raw materials, the machines and components to make sneeds are overjoyed, and take out loans in their own countries to expand to meet China's amazing demand. It’s a bubble, basically, but like the Once-ler, who doesn’t realise he’s destroying his own business until the last Truffula tree is cut, neither the companies nor the investors caught in this profitable frenzy see it that way.

就像《老雷斯的故事》里的一樣，很快，所有的“兄弟、叔叔和阿姨”也開始生產(chǎn)sneed。他們進口了新車輛和設備，推動產(chǎn)品價格飆升。生產(chǎn)sneed所需的原材料、機器和零部件的外國供應商欣喜若狂，他們在本國申請貸款用于擴張，以滿足中國令人驚訝的旺盛需求。本質(zhì)上，這是泡沫，但就像故事中的萬斯勒那樣，卷入這場有利可圖的狂潮的企業(yè)和投資者不這么看。在《老雷斯的故事》中，在最后一顆毛毛樹(Truffula，故事中的一個樹種，其樹葉用于編織Thneed——譯者注)被砍倒之前，萬斯勒沒有意識到他正在摧毀自己的生意。

The first stage of this cycle benefits foreign businesses, a lot. Italian weaving loom manufacturers, Australian miners, US grain farmers and high-tech multinationals all benefit. Trade wonks even reason that the move “up the value chain” is an opportunity to balance the trade deficit and compensate for all the one-way shipments enabled by China’s massive manufacturing competitiveness.

這個周期的第一階段極大地有利于外國企業(yè)。意大利織布機生產(chǎn)商，澳大利亞礦商、美國糧農(nóng)和高科技跨國公司都是受益者。貿(mào)易學究們甚至斷定，向“價值鏈上游”進軍是一個平衡貿(mào)易逆差的機會，能夠彌補中國強大的制造業(yè)競爭力帶來的單向出口。

Then, disaster hits. Everyone's factory is complete at more or less the same time, supply vastly exceeds market demand, and the companies all start exporting just to break even. Margins in the global sneed industry collapse and the international manufacturers of both sneeds and sneed looms scream bloody murder as their order books tumble. Tariff barriers go up in developed markets. One particularly unfortunate private Chinese manufacturer of sneeds goes bankrupt, leaving a huge crater on his city’s bank balance sheets. His demise provides ammunition to every other sneed maker in China to lobby Beijing for help.

隨后災難來臨了。所有人的工廠基本上同時完工，供應極大地超過市場需求，企業(yè)全都開始出口以實現(xiàn)收支平衡。全球sneed行業(yè)的利潤率大幅下降，sneed和sneed織布機的國際廠商訂單驟降，它們紛紛呼救。發(fā)達市場豎起了關稅壁壘。一家特別倒霉的中國民營制造商破產(chǎn)了，導致其所在城市的銀行的資產(chǎn)負債表出現(xiàn)巨大虧空。他的破產(chǎn)為中國其他所有sneed生產(chǎn)企業(yè)提供了理由，讓他們向北京方面求助。

Beijing might respond with subsidies so that Chinese consumers buy sneeds, or they might make it more difficult for foreign-made sneeds to enter the market by placing sneeds on the domestic purchasing catalogues for state-owned enterprises and government bureaus. Nonetheless, the sneed glut persists.

北京方面可能提供補貼，從而讓中國消費者能夠購買sneed，或者將sneed列入國有企業(yè)和政府部門的采購目錄，從而讓外國生產(chǎn)的sneed更難進入國內(nèi)市場。然而，sneed仍然供過于求。

Luckily, it turns out that sneed marketing forms an integral part of the "One Belt, One Road" policy and Chinese banks are informed they can lift lending restrictions on over-capacity industries in order to provide policy loans to other countries to buy sneeds. Baffled international manufacturers of sneeds suddenly see their third country markets disappear too.

幸運的是，最終sneed的營銷成為“一帶一路”政策的有機組成部分，中國的銀行被告知，可以對產(chǎn)能過剩行業(yè)解除放貸限制，以便為其他國家購買sneed提供政策貸款。困惑的sneed國際制造商突然發(fā)現(xiàn)，它們的第三國市場也消失了。

Rinse, repeat for the next target industry.

漂洗一下，然后對下一個目標行業(yè)重復這一戰(zhàn)略。

Similar dynamics have engulfed the solar panel industry (with the twist that the initial impetus was a plan for Chinese manufacturers to profit by European subsidies), medium and high-value steel, aluminium products, semiconductors, home appliances, hydropower engineering — the list goes on.

同樣的格局出現(xiàn)在太陽能電池板行業(yè)(比較復雜的是，該行業(yè)最初的動力是讓中國制造商獲利于歐洲補貼的計劃)、中高價值鋼材、鋁制品、半導體、家電以及水電工程等等。

China’s huge market has so far absorbed the immense automotive and nuclear power components manufacturing capacity that has been built up, but it won’t for long. Meanwhile, Beijing is trying to tempt foreign automakers to lend a hand in creating the next pillar industry: electronic vehicles.

中國龐大的市場迄今吸收了汽車和核電部件行業(yè)近年累積的巨大產(chǎn)能，但這不會持久。與此同時，北京方面正努力吸引外國汽車制造商幫助創(chuàng)建下一個支柱產(chǎn)業(yè)：電動汽車。

The Obama administration was attempting to tackle this problem at the root with its structural challenges to Chinese subsidies at the WTO. However, that effort was too slow and too subtle to make a good headline that showed that they were "doing something" about Chinese overcapacity.

奧巴馬政府曾試圖從根本上解決這個問題，在世界貿(mào)易組織(WTO)對中國補貼發(fā)起結構性挑戰(zhàn)。然而，該努力過于遲緩和不易察覺，無法成為很好的頭條新聞，表明他們正在對中國的過剩產(chǎn)能“采取對策”。

The Trump administration disliked the Obama administration’s approach, so it is trying unilateral trade actions one category of goods at a time. But Mr Ross’s comments in Hong Kong imply that he realises there are larger structural dynamics at work.

特朗普政府不喜歡奧巴馬政府的做法，因此它嘗試逐一對某類商品采取單邊貿(mào)易舉措。但羅斯在香港發(fā)表的言論表明，他意識到有更大的結構性因素在起作用。

Mr Ross knows from personal experience how this cycle works, because he invested in the US and Chinese textile and steel industries. Now China accounts for about half the world’s steel capacity, with exports likely to continue increasing for the foreseeable future.

羅斯從個人經(jīng)歷知道這種周期是如何演變的，因為他曾投資于美國和中國的紡織和鋼鐵行業(yè)?，F(xiàn)在，中國占到全球鋼鐵產(chǎn)能的一半左右，出口很可能在可以預見的未來繼續(xù)增長。

So does Washington have a new plan for dealing with industrial policies like Made in China 2025? If you give Mr Ross 15 cents, a nail, and the shell of a great-great-great grandfather snail, he might tell you.

因此華盛頓有應對“中國制造2025”等產(chǎn)業(yè)政策的新計劃嗎?如果你給羅斯15美分、一枚釘子以及一個很老很老的蝸牛殼，他可能會告訴你答案。