午餐刚刚吃过一顿牛排，让人很难不对中国人获取钾肥供应的迫切努力表示一些同情——这些努力旨在确保更多中国人能像我一样享用肉食。
中化集团(Sinochem)总裁刘德树对此会有不同看法。他会说，这家国有企业之所以阻止必和必拓(BHP Billiton)对加拿大钾肥(PotashCorp) 390亿美元的敌意收购，是押注于全球化肥行业的商业前景。由于全球需求稳步上升，这一前景相当看好。
然而，事实上，此举完全是出于政治动机，反映出共产党领导层决心永远不让1945年前中国受外国控制的局面重演。
今年，中国政府制定了小麦、大米、玉米和马铃薯95%实现自给自足的官方目标。但实现这些目标正变得越来越困难。
尽管中国国内生产总值(GDP)每年以两位数的速度飙升，但耕地面积的增长却或多或少限于停滞。根据美国农业部(US Department of Agriculture)的估计，中国耕地面积今年仅会增长1%。农业产量正缓慢增长甚至下降，这取决于收成。但随着中国人变得更为富有，中国政府同时面临着应对饮食习惯发生巨大变化的前景。
按照亚洲的标准，中国人已经是肉类消费大户，例如，其人均消费量已超过泰国、印度、菲律宾和日本。但在任何地区，随着富裕程度的上升，人们往往会增加肉类的消费，收入增加只是刚刚开始对饮食产生影响。如果中国人的肉类消费量最终赶上美国，那么肉类需求将增加一倍以上。根据环球通视(IHS Global Insight)的数据，即便接近德国或英国的水平，中国的肉类需求也将增加一半。
这将给中国政府带来一个巨大的问题：生产1公斤肉类需要耗费的粮食数量是素食的7倍。若想实现自给自足，中国要么必须对肉类实行配给制，要么就必须大幅增加粮食产量。
这正是钾盐安全供应之所以重要的原因所在。钾盐是富含钾元素的化合物的统称，用于为耕种过度的土壤施肥并提高产量。中国拥有一些钾盐，但数量有限，而且矿石的品质往往较低。加拿大、俄罗斯和白俄罗斯的储量巨大。
必和必拓竞购加拿大钾肥的举动，似乎触动了中国政府的民族主义神经，这或许是因为这家澳大利亚公司曾经触痛过中国——该公司曾与力拓(Rio Tinto)和巴西淡水河谷(Vale)联手提出一个固定的铁矿石价格，而不是经过谈判商定价格。以总理温家宝为首的中国国务院指示中化集团，考虑提出反报价的方案。但单独出价可能无法通过加拿大对外资收购的纯经济效益测试，其中一个重要原因是中化将寻求把价格维持在低位。
因此中化剩下了两种选择：牵头国际财团整体竞购加拿大钾肥，或者购入拦截性股权(blocking stake)。中化已接洽过一些潜在合作伙伴，包括新加坡主权财富基金淡马锡(Temasek)、许多加拿大矿业公司以及一批加拿大养老基金。但迄今为止，还无人响应。多数矿业公司手中没有现金，它们对收购不感兴趣，或担心惹恼必和必拓。唯一已表态的养老基金表示不感兴趣。淡马锡青睐自然资源，但它关注的是有利可图的回报，这与中方保障廉价供应的目标存在冲突。
购入拦截性股权似乎也有问题，因为看上去中化牵头的财团必须购入加拿大钾肥至少34%的股权，才能确保阻止必和必拓的收购；低于这一比例可能会失败，因为根据加拿大的监管规定，允许多数股东在特定情况下强制收购少数股东的股份。
中化仍然有可能找到逾越这些障碍、提出成功出价的方法。但中国政府的预期是，随着收购不可行的事实变得更为明朗，这一主张将宣告破灭。这或许正是中化的打算，有一个迹象可以证明这一点：该公司迄今尚未指定交易顾问。如果收购失败能够促使中国对执迷于自给自足的做法进行重新评估，有可能是一件好事。中国有很多自助的办法，包括通过增强培训提高农民耕种效率，以及通过加强知识产权，增加产量更高的外国粮种的供应。
这将给政府赢得一些时间。不过，长期而言，中国政府可能必须承认，与几乎所有其它商品一样，粮食也是一种全球交易的商品。刘德树和温家宝应就此展开讨论，或许可以点一道美味的牛排，边吃边聊。
译者/梁艳裳
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001034691
Fresh from a lunchtime steak, it is hard not to feel some sympathy for China’s desperate efforts to secure potash supplies, which are aimed at making sure more Chinese can enjoy meals like mine.
Liu Deshu, chief executive of Sinochem, would put it differently. He would say the state-owned group’s effort to block BHP Billiton’s $39bn hostile bid for Canada’s PotashCorp is a play on the commercial prospects of the global fertiliser industry, which are reasonably good because of steadily increasing global demand.
The reality, though, is that the motivation is entirely political, reflecting the communist leadership‘s determination never to allow a repetition of the foreign domination suffered by China up to 1945.
This year the government set an official target of 95 per cent self-sufficiency in wheat, rice, maize and tubers. But hitting that target is getting harder all the time.
While Chinese gross domestic product shoots up annually at double-digit rates, the area of planted farmland is more or less static. It will rise by just 1 per cent this year, according to estimates by the US Department of Agriculture. Production is growing slowly or even falling, depending on the crop. But China’s government also faces the prospect of coping with a massive shift in eating habits as its population grows more prosperous.
By Asian standards, the Chinese are already big meat eaters, consuming more per head than the Thais, Indians, Filipinos and Japanese, for example. But people everywhere tend to eat more meat as prosperity increases, and the impact of higher incomes has only just started to have an effect on diet. If the Chinese end up eating as much meat as Americans, demand will more than double. Even if they are more like the Germans or the British, it will rise by half, according to IHS Global Insight.
That creates a huge problem for Beijing: putting a kilo of meat on the table requires seven times as much grain as being vegetarian. If it wants to be self-sufficient, China will either have to ration meat or hugely ramp up grain production.
That’s where a secure supply of potash comes in. Potash is a catch-all name for compounds rich in potassium used to replenish tired soils and boost production. China has some, but not much, and the ores tend to be low grade. The big deposits are in Canada, Russia and Belarus.
BHP’s bid for PotashCorp seems to have touched a nationalist nerve in Beijing, perhaps because the Australian company has already stung China once by ganging up with Rio Tinto and Vale of Brazil to offer a fixed price for iron ore rather than negotiating. China’s state council, headed by prime minister Wen Jiabao, responded by telling Sinochem to explore a counterbid. But a lone offer would probably fall foul of Canada’s net economic benefit test for foreign takeovers, not least because the Chinese group would seek to keep prices low.
That leaves two alternatives: leading an international consortium to bid for the whole of PotashCorp, or taking a blocking stake. Sinochem has approached potential partners, including Temasek, the Singapore sovereign wealth fund, many of Canada’s mining companies, and a range of Canadian pension funds. So far, there are no takers. Most of the miners do not have the cash, are not interested or are wary of upsetting BHP, while the only pension fund to have spoken out said it was not interested. Temasek likes natural resources, but is focused on profitable returns, which conflicts with China’s objective of securing cheap supplies.
Taking a blocking stake also seems problematic because it looks as though a Sinochem consortium would have to buy at least 34 per cent of PotashCorp to be sure of stopping BHP; anything less could fail because of Canadian regulations allowing majority shareholders to squeeze out minorities in certain circumstances.
Sinochem could yet find a way of overcoming these obstacles and mounting a successful bid. But the expectation in Beijing is that the idea will fizzle out as its impracticality becomes clearer. One indication that this may be what Sinochem is planning is that it has not yet appointed an adviser. Failure might be a good thing if it prompted a review of the self-sufficiency obsession. There is much that China can do to help itself, including improving the efficiency of its farmers through better training and strengthening intellectual property rights to improve access to higher yielding foreign seeds.
That would buy the government some time. In the longer term, though, it may have to accept that food is a globally traded commodity like almost everything else. Mr Liu and Mr Wen should talk about it, perhaps over a nice steak dinner.
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