多年来，如果外资企业对自身在华业务受到的待遇不满，得到的建议往往是：可以私下抱怨，但在公开场合要保持沉默。
主流观点认为，把对中国官员独断专行和偏袒本国企业的失望情绪广而告之，只会招致报复，并威胁到企业的现有投资。
类似通用电气(GE)、德国工业巨头西门子(Siemens)以及全球最大化工企业巴斯夫(BASF)等企业的负责人，被北京方面视为"外国友人"。作为获得中国市场准入权的回报，当局希望他们能够在批评者面前为中国政府的政策辩护。
但上述三家公司的首席执行官杰弗里•伊梅尔特(Jeffrey Immelt)、罗旭德(Peter Loescher)和贺斌杰(Jürgen Hambrecht)最近都对本企业在中国面临的困难直言不讳。中国很快将成为全球第二大经济体。
对保持沉默和畅所欲言在风险/回报方面的考量，已经开始向后者偏移。中国无视知识产权、强迫技术转移、在政府采购中偏袒本国企业的政策让一些外企觉得，自己正被排挤出这个国家。"我们感觉在中国越来越不受欢迎，正因如此，你发现有更多的人大胆表态，并重新考虑自己在中国的未来，"美国信息技术产业理事会(Information Technology Industry Council)的约翰•纽佛(John Neuffer)说。
商业领袖们表示，2001年中国加入世界贸易组织(WTO)前后，中国政府迅速进行了大量改革，在那之后，北京方面让外国投资更自由化的胃口已经变小。因此，即便当前的政策只代表着一种停滞，外企却感觉像是在倒退。
罗旭德和贺斌杰将德国总理安格拉•默克尔(Angela Merkel)访华之旅视为一个良机，选择在这个时候大声"诉苦"。"从德国人的角度出发，德国总理谈到了最重要的几点：改善知识产权保护和中国市场准入规则的必要性，"德国商会(German Chamber of Commerce)的中国专家萨宾纳•黑普勒(Sabine Hepperle)表示。随着中国对于全球企业的重要性不断上升，这些企业要将往日在华投资转化为利润的压力也与日俱增。中国经济正以两位数的速度增长，在华销售在核心业绩中的比重也不断提高，高管们再也不能把市场准入成本作为在华业务未能实现目标的借口，或是一味强调监管环境的改善。
如今，中国已经是GE的第五大市场。2008年，伊梅尔特曾表示，2010年在华销售额可能达到100亿美元。目前，GE预计今年年底前来自中国的收入将增长10%，至60亿美元左右。
在国家补贴的支持下，中国企业正逐渐走出国内市场，挑战西方企业，和它们在其本土和第三方国家争夺市场份额。太阳能行业就是一个例子，中国企业有望从德国竞争对手手中夺走世界领头羊的位置。另一个例子是风能行业。中国在该行业拥有70家企业，它们已发起了一场竞赛，旨在超越GE、西门子和丹麦的维斯塔斯(Vestas)等全球巨头。
德国实业家们表示，在中国风能市场，本土企业在政府采购中明显受到偏袒。私下里，德国一家大型工业企业的首席执行官指出，有一家全球市场领军企业过去三年一份订单都没拿到，尽管他们在中国进行了大规模投资。西方国家政府对本国企业的担忧感同身受，但美国和欧盟也没有什么政策工具，能用来撬开中国市场的大门。中国加入WTO时所签署的承诺，大多涉及出口或廉价制造品等更为简单的领域，而不是外国投资所涉及的高度复杂的领域。即使存在书面的承诺，中国往往也缺乏相应机制——比如信息全面的中立法庭——来履行这些承诺。
两位德国商业领袖愿意公开批评中国投资环境，还有另外一个原因：说起来有点自相矛盾，但这反映出在实业家看来，中国的政治环境有所改善。
英国《金融时报》艾伦•贝蒂(Alan Beattie)、吉密欧(Jamil Anderlini)、丹尼尔•谢弗(Daniel Schaefer)联合报道。
译者/何黎
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001033657
For years, the advice for foreign companies unhappy at the treatment of their Chinese operations was to complain in private but stay quiet in public.
Broadcasting frustration about Chinese bureaucrats making arbitrary decisions and tilting the board towards domestic companies, so the conventional wisdom went, merely invited reprisals and threatened existing investments.
The heads of companies such as General Electric, Siemens, the German industrial giant and BASF, the world's biggest chemical company, are known in Beijing as "foreign friends". In return for access to the Chinese market they are expected to defend Beijing's policies against critics.
But Jeffrey Immelt, Peter Loescher and Juergen Hambrecht – the chief executives of GE, Siemens and BASF respectively – have all spoken out about the difficulties they face in what will soon be the world's second-largest economy.
The risk-reward calculation between staying quiet and speaking up has shifted towards the latter. With China employing policies including ignoring intellectual property rights, forced technology transfer and government procurement skewed towards domestic companies, some foreign businesses feel they are being pushed out of the country. "We are feeling less and less welcome in China, which is why you are seeing more people speaking out and reconsidering their futures in China," says John Neuffer of the US Information Technology Industry Council.
Business leaders say Beijing's appetite for ,more liberalisation of foreign investment has waned after a rapid burst of reform around China's accession to the World Trade Organisation in 2001. So even when current policies only represent a standstill, they feel like going backwards.
Mr Loescher and Mr Hambrecht chose a tour of China by Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, as a good time to amplify their complaints. "From a German perspective, the chancellor has addressed the most important points: a necessary improvement in the protection of intellectual property and better access to the Chinese market," Sabine Hepperle, China expert at the German Chamber of Commerce, said. With China becoming increasingly important to global companies, their Chinese operations are under increasing pressure to convert past investment into profits. With China's economy growing at double digit rates and Chinese sales making up a larger chunk of core earnings, executives can no longer explain missed targets in China as the cost of market entry or point to an improving regulatory environment.
China is now GE's fifth-biggest market. In 2008 Mr Immelt said sales there could reach $10bn by 2010. GE now expects revenues from China to grow about 10 per cent to roughly $6bn (€4.6bn, £3.9bn) by the end of this year.
Chinese companies, backed by state subsidies, are increasingly breaking out of their domestic market and challenging western companies for market share in their own economies and those of third countries. One example is the solar industry, where Chinese companies are poised to take over the world lead from German rivals. Another is the wind energy sector, where the Asian country can sport 70 companies that have launched a race to overtake global market behemoths such as GE, Siemens or Denmark's Vestas.
German industrialists say in the Chinese wind energy market, domestic companies are heavily favoured in government procurement. In private, the German chief executive of a large industrial company points to one large international market leader that did not get a single order in the past three years in spite of heavy investments in China. Although western governments share the concerns of their companies, the US and EU have few policy tools that they can use to prise open the Chinese market. While Beijing signed up to commitments when it joined the WTO, many concerned simpler issues such as exports of cheap manufactures, not the highly complex areas involved in foreign investment. Even when paper commitments exist the country frequently lacks mechanisms – such as informed, neutral courts – needed to implement them.
There is another reason for the willingness of two German business leaders openly to criticise China's investment climate: it paradoxically reflects what industrialists see as an improvement in the political landscape.
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