该策略在一个又一个行业的兴起，引发了外国企业的抱怨，并逐渐升级成了外国领先实业家的公开批评。但阿尔斯通与西门子等公司不愿公开说出自己的困难，因为它们担心被锁在中国市场门外。尽管它们不愿公开抱怨，但一些外国铁路业高管私下宣称，在某些情况下，他们的技术被合资伙伴全盘偷窃与抄袭。
在最近的一次新闻发布会上，铁道部官员对外界有关强迫技术转移与侵犯知识产权的担忧不屑一顾。铁道部总工程师何华武表示：“中国应用了世界高速铁路人类文明的成果，同时在这个程度上进行了大幅度的提升和创新。”然而，据外国铁路业高管估计，中国所使用的高铁技术中，约90%来源于合作伙伴关系或外国公司研发的设备。
在华运营的国际列车制造商高管私下表示，向北京抱怨或启动法律诉讼毫无意义。尽管声称如今所有的高铁技术都是自主研发的，但中国铁道部还是组建了一个由律师与官员组成的小组，负责调查如果国有铁路公司开始在国际市场上出售产品，它们在面对知识产权诉讼方面有多大的脆弱性。
一些业内人士表示，为了与全球竞争对手争夺在华优势，一些外国公司向中国合作伙伴转移了比他们公开承认的要先进得多的技术，这是中国企业能够在如此短时间内提高列车速度的原因之一。他们表示，如果没有这样的协助，中国将很难在不牺牲安全性的情况下，将列车速度提高如此之多。
外国公司不愿公开抱怨，不仅仅是因为害怕被赶出中国市场。它们还注意到了一个初露头角的机遇：与中国集团联手，投标世界各地的高铁项目——从美国加州到俄罗斯，从巴西到缅甸。在最近的一个案例中，西门子放弃了自己投标沙特阿拉伯一铁路线建设与运营合同的计划，转而加入由中国企业牵头的一个银团中。
尽管投标没有进行下去，但它突显出，中国公司在最先进零部件上需要外国公司的帮助。它也表明，在外国公司逐渐被挤出中国市场之际，它们看到了与中国企业在其它地方合作的机遇。
一外国铁路公司的一名高管表示：“与中国铁路企业不同，阿尔斯通、川崎重工与西门子不是银行，没有政治影响力，也没有政府的影响力和资金在后面给它们撑腰。”
尽管私下对为了进入中国市场而被迫创造了强大的新竞争对手感到震怒，但外国公司已经开始意识到，如果它们无法击败新起之秀，最好或许还是与它们为伍。
‘他们只想要世界上最大、最快的列车组’
世界银行驻华交通运输协调员约翰•斯盖尔斯(John Scales)称，中国高铁计划“或许是有史以来一个国家规划的最大规模客运列车投资项目”。他以极为长远的历史眼光看待该计划。
斯盖尔斯北京办公室的桌面上，放着一份装在框中的1857年11月的《伦敦新闻画报》(Illustrated London News)，上面有一则关于美国铁路债券大崩盘的消息，其中写道：“很明显，美国所有的黄金都不够偿还英国资本家向美国铁路投入的资金”。
斯盖尔斯对历史背景与伴随铁路扩张而来的诸多融资问题的了解，并未阻止他成为中国扩建高铁网络昂贵计划的坚定支持者。但该扩张计划在中国学者圈子中引起了争议，许多人对政府向他们眼中的面子工程砸如此多钱提出了质疑。
北京交通大学教授赵坚表示：“这种高铁项目是一项政治工程，没有什么经济价值。政府只想拥有世界上最大、最快的列车组。”相比于高铁项目，赵坚更赞成传统铁路。
尽管两人都同意，高铁铁路线本身无法覆盖它们的成本，但斯盖尔斯认为，通过分流现有铁路线的客运流量，高铁将为增加货运创造条件，而货运可为铁道部贡献足够的新收入，用以支付所有新铁路线的成本。
赵坚辩称，事实上，几乎不会有客运列车会从现有轨道上撤下，因为它们无法在新型高铁线路上运行，而政府也不会报废所有这些旧列车。
据世界银行估计，在中国所有未偿付债务中，铁道部占到了高达10%。中国分析师表示，通过债务融资的铁路建设比例，已从2005年的不到50%，上升至了去年的逾70%。
赵坚表示：“一场真切的债务危机正在积聚，到某个时候就会爆发。”
但斯盖尔斯要乐观得多。他表示：“即使铁道部支付不起所有新铁路线的成本，政府也会帮它把钱付清。多数国家的政府都会补贴铁路建设。”
译者/何黎
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001034873
The emergence of this strategy in industry after industry has prompted complaints from foreign businesses and spilled over into public criticism from leading foreign industrialists. But companies such as Alstom and Siemens are reluctant to speak out about their difficulties because they fear being locked out of the market. Though they will not complain publicly, some foreign rail executives privately claim that in some cases their technology has been stolen outright and copied by joint-venture partners.
In a recent press conference, railway ministry officials dismissed concerns about forced technology transfer and IP infringement. “China has made use of technology from around the world and through great innovation has made it Chinese,” said He Huawu, chief engineer. However, foreign industry executives estimate that roughly 90 per cent of the high-speed technology used in China is derived from partnerships or equipment developed by foreign companies.
In private, officials from international train manufacturers operating in China say it is futile to complain to Beijing or initiate legal proceedings. Despite its claims that all its high-speed technology is now homegrown, the ministry has organised a team of lawyers and officials to investigate how vulnerable state rail companies will be to IP lawsuits when they start selling in the international market.
Some in the industry suggest that, in seeking to gain advantage over their global competitors in China, foreign companies have transferred much more advanced technology to Chinese partners than they admit publicly, which is one reason the domestic companies have been able to increase the speed of their trains in such a short amount of time. They say that without that assistance it would be very hard to increase the train speeds so much without cutting corners on safety.
The foreign companies are reluctant to go public with complaints not only for fear of being shut out of the market. They also have an eye on burgeoning opportunities to form partnerships with Chinese groups bidding on high-speed projects all over the world, from California to Russia, Brazil and Burma. In a recent case, Siemens dropped its own bid to build and operate a line in Saudi Arabia so it could join a Chinese-led consortium.
Though the bid did not go ahead, it highlighted Chinese companies’ need for foreign assistance on the most advanced components. It also shows the opportunity foreign companies see in partnering with them elsewhere as they are squeezed out of China.
“Alstom, KHI and Siemens are not banks and do not have the political influence or the full weight and money of the state behind them in the way the Chinese rail companies do,” says one senior executive at a foreign rail company.
Although privately livid about having been compelled to create powerful new competitors as a condition of entry into China, foreign companies have started to realise that, if they are not able to beat the upstarts, they may be better off joining them.
‘They just want the world’s biggest and fastest train set’
John Scales, the World Bank’s transport co-ordinator in China, takes a very long view of the country’s high-speed rail plans, which he calls “perhaps the biggest single planned programme of passenger rail investment there has ever been in one country”, writes Jamil Anderlini.
On the desk of his Beijing office sits a framed copy of The Illustrated London News from November 1857 with a story on the great American railway bond crash. “It is obvious that all the gold in the United States would not suffice to pay back to British capitalists the sums they have invested in American railroads,” it states.
Mr Scales’ grasp of historical context and understanding of the numerous financing problems that accompany railway expansion do not deter him from being an ardent supporter of China’s costly plans to expand its high-speed network. But the expansion is controversial among Chinese academics, with many questioning the merit of spending so much on what they regard as prestige projects.
“This high-speed programme is a political project with little economic value,” says Zhao Jian, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University who favours conventional rail rather than high-speed projects. “The government just wants to have the biggest and fastest number one train set in the world.”
While the two agree that individual high-speed rail lines will not be able to cover their costs, Mr Scales thinks that by removing passenger traffic from existing tracks, the high-speed lines will make way for more freight, which could provide the railway ministry with enough new revenues to pay for all the new lines.
Mr Zhao argues that few passenger trains will actually be taken off existing tracks, because they cannot run on the new high-speed lines and the government is not going to scrap all those old carriages.
The railway ministry accounts for as much as 10 per cent of all outstanding debt in the country, according to World Bank estimates. Chinese analysts say the proportion of railway construction funded by debt has increased from under 50 per cent in 2005 to more than 70 per cent last year.
“This is a real debt crisis building up for the government and it is going to break at some point,” Mr Zhao says.
But Mr Scales is far more sanguine. “Even if the ministry can’t pay for all the new lines, the government will step in to cover the costs,” he says. “Governments subsidise their railways in most other countries as well.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.
没有评论:
发表评论