2005年NPR美国国家公共电台七月-China's Growing Appetite for Business（在线收听） |
| At a brief joint news conference with the Prime Minister of Australia,President Bush was asked today about China.The president noted that there are many dimensions to US-China relations including economic relations.This is part of what he said: "I think it's in the world's interest that China grow open market economy.Open markets and free economies tend to cause people to demand additional freedoms.So,it's in our economic interest and I think it's in the world's interest that we encourage free and fair trade.We have some difficulties on the trade front with China." And we have some headlines on the investment front. A Chinese company wants to buy Unocal.Another wants to buy Maytag.In some circles you can hear the threat of China ascendent discussed today the way people talked about the threat of Japan 20 years ago.Ted Fishman,the author of China Inc.as in China incorporated that is joins us now. Welcome to the program. Happy to be here. Unocal, Maytag,IBM's personal computer unit that was bought by Lenovo, a Chinese compamy.What is China's interest in buying American companies? Well, China wants global brands just as any emerging economy,emergingly strong economy would want and if you look around the world shelves right now,it's very hard to identify what a single strong Chinese brand.By going abroad and getting companies like Maytag,which they may or may not get, Lenovo and other brand names China can instantly have this recognition for the brands that is already making in its own factories. Strong emerging economy.How strong? How quickly emerging? Astonishingly fast.Faster than any economy has ever come up in the history of the world. Per capita incomes there have quadrupled in 20 years.If you use purchasing power parity which the CIA uses to calculate the size of economies,you can multiply China's 1.4-trillion-dollar economy by six and they have the second largest economy in the world. How does what the Chinese are doing in terms of buying companies and buying other things in this country compared with what the Japanese did when they started buying American? Ah,it's quite different.For one thing, the Japanese financed their purchases in the United States with private capital.They had lending from Japanese banks that were private banks and they came here to invest in companies that were making things in the United States.The Japanese owned a lot of manufacturing in the United States.Interestingly enough , they don't own as much as the Swiss, the Germans or the Dutch. Do you think that we are actually on the verge of another hysteria about an emerging Asian economy ,uh,coming into America and leaving us only with shreds of our security and sovereignty? Ah,There is a danger of this hysteria . If we play it right, our politicians play it right. In the remarks that President Bush just said it sounds like he's trying to find a moderate tone on it.Then the pessimism we feel right now can turn into optimism pretty quickly,because we can use these new deals to get rules for trade in China that will benefit American companies in ways that American companies are not benefitting now. He's talking about free and open and fair markets.Do the Chinese see a benefit in free and open and fair markets? They see a benefit in the current regime which is a big mismatch between our economies. You can walk into our economy from anywhere in the world and buy a company, engage in our capital market. If an Ameraican company or the American government the more I propone in this case, went in to buy a hallmark of Chinese industry today, the Chinese would never allow it to happen and the Chinese don't see a benefit in that kind of opening. When Chinese companies buy American companies which they can do, is then one business, as we understand, were buying another business or is an extension of the Chinese government or an extension of the Chinese Army or the Chinese Communist Party buying a business? It depends on the deal. In the Maytag deal which is in the works right now, if Haier, the Chinese appliance maker buys Maytag, it would be a private company buying a private company, and we see that all the time in this country. The Sino deal in which the Chinese oil company is trying to buy Unocal is quite different because it has full access to the financial resources of the Chinese government. And they are buying hard assets which right now are essential for China's development. It's quite a different deal. We don't see that kind of deal in our country. Imagine if the US military tried to buy Cnooc, that's a closer analog to them than the Maytag deal. If in fact the Maytag were bought by the Chinese company, would China have an interest in keeping Maytag production in the United States? Or would it likely move Maytag production off to China? Well, this is one of the more amusing aspects of this deal. You know, Maytag was being bid on by an American investor groups and one of the strategies of American investor groups in all industries now is to buy American companies and move production as fast as you can to China. Whereas the Chinese, if they bought Maytag, they would be using it for an inroad into the American market. So it'll be the Chinese player who was keeping the company more American and the American investor groups that was making it more Chinese. Ted Fishman, thank you very much for talking with us. My pleasure. Ted Fishman,the author of China Inc |
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