加州州长阿诺德•施瓦辛格(Arnold Schwarzenegger)最近在上海时，曾在中国制造的子弹头列车前留影。这一场面的历史象征意义可不一般。
这位“终结者州长”当时正在亚洲进行“购物游”，为升级加州铁路网、建设高速铁路的计划物色列车、技术和资金。加州铁路网很大一部分是在19世纪由中国劳工建造的。
施瓦辛格在上海说：“我的所见所闻让人印象十分深刻。我们期待中国也能与其他国家一道参与竞标过程，让我们以尽可能低的成本建设高速铁路。”
在国家控制的中国铁路企业为国内外新建铁路大量制造高速列车之际，北京方面恐怕很难为“和谐号”高速列车找到更好的名人代言了。
然而，对于曾为中国高铁计划提供大量技术的欧洲、日本和北美企业而言，施瓦辛格的访问突显出一个令人不安的趋势。
在许多跨国公司的高管看来，这是对其他行业的警告。这些企业多年来一直在向政府背景的合作伙伴“转让”或销售技术，以换取市场准入，但他们得到的回报却是在中国的市场份额日益缩小，因为中国的国家政策向本土产业倾斜。
这些公司现在发现，自己的高速铁路技术已被“消化吸收”。按照政府的定义，消化吸收国外先进技术是一个多步骤的过程，包括购买引进国外技术、在现成的平台上创新，再（由当初的中方合作伙伴）以国内品牌销售。此外，外国公司还发现，在全世界竞标时都会遭遇中国企业短兵相接的竞争，中国企业以折扣价格销售消化了的高速铁路技术，往往还得到国有银行廉价信贷的慷慨支持。
短短几年间，中国国内的高速铁路产业便像雨后春笋一样成长起来。虽然中国企业尚未向成功向海外销售，但行业专家指出，首笔交易可能很快就能达成，买方可能是加利福尼亚州，也可能是众多渴望高铁技术的国家之一。
高铁行业发展的推力是国内铁路网的扩张。分析人士表示，这项浩大的交通基础设施建设工程，几乎肯定是自美国建设铁路网以来规模最大的。中国铁路系统老化造成的瓶颈问题，严重限制了地方乃至全国的经济增长，而这些空前的建设规划对于解决瓶颈问题十分关键，也构成了2008年出台的4万亿人民币经济刺激方案的一个重要部分。
中国目前拥有世界最大的高速铁路网络，还计划到2020年扩展到目前的约三倍，超过1.6万公里，总长度足够从北京延伸到伦敦，再从伦敦折回北京。政府已经决定未来几年每年安排逾1000亿美元的预算，用于建设新铁路线和升级陈旧的铁路网络。据世界银行(World Bank)估计，这个数字预期将占同期全球铁路投资金额的一半以上。
这块诱人的市场吸引了世界各大铁路集团。10多年来，北京方面欢迎德国西门子(Siemens)、法国阿尔斯通(Alstom)、日本川崎重工(Kawasaki Heavy Industries)和加拿大庞巴迪(Bombardier)等集团与国有企业建立合作伙伴关系。在激烈竞争之下，技术转让成了一项要求。
2002年，为了挑战外资主导地位，铁道部推出了国有制造企业完全利用自主知识产权、花费1.4亿元人民币研发的高速铁路系统“中华之星”。然而不到两年后，铁道部便宣布其核心技术“不成熟”。
中华之星悄悄驶入侧路后便被遗忘，政府鼓励国内企业转而加紧消化国外技术。与此同时，铁道部也在不断提高“国产化比率”的要求。
铁道部拒绝回答英国《金融时报》针对此类要求提出的问题，但官员们曾多次公开表示，任何铁道工程都必须有至少70%设备由国内企业生产。其结果是，外资企业的市场份额急剧下滑。
2002年，中国在有外国公司参与的高速铁路市场（包括车厢、信号设备和其他高科技轨道交通组件）中投入近40亿欧元，当时外国公司在其中占据了70%的市场份额。行业数据显示，今天中国在这一领域的投资达到了170亿欧元，而外国公司仅占15%至20%的市场份额，盈利与八年前大致相当。
铁道部2007年庆祝本土组装的高铁列车问世之时，避而不谈那些列车是在川崎重工提供的日本技术平台基础上制造的，而只是强调在消化外国技术方面取得的国家成就。铁道部高调宣称，国有企业以“明显低于”标准的成本，成功吸收了高铁技术。
在东部港口城市青岛一间熠熠生辉的厂房里，“消化再创新”计划的最新成果正在接受测试。中国南车四方(China Southern Railways Sifang)正在建造的子弹头列车最高时速达380公里，将行驶于北京至上海的高速铁路，京沪高铁定于2012年底竣工。在预览中曝光的这些列车，与日本最新推出的新干线(Shinkansen)子弹头列车不可思议地相像。
南车四方技术中心副总工程师罗斌解释道，他所在的公司向川崎重工购买了使列车时速达到200公里的原始技术后，已不再与川崎合作。“这是我们以消化吸收的技术为基础所做的创新设计，”罗斌指着测试轨道上光亮的新机车这样说。“完全是我们自主设计的成果，与庞巴迪、西门子无关，与新干线更加无关。”
日本东海旅客铁道株式会社(Central Japan Railway)运营高速铁路服务，并参与新干线系统的一部分开发工作。其会长葛西敬之(Yoshiyuki Kasai)透露，他曾警告川崎重工不要试图达成最终会造就低成本竞争对手的合作协议。他3月份对英国《金融时报》说：“他们没有听取我们的建议。我想这对他们是一个苦涩的教训。”
“他们当然愤怒，但也知道与中国政府作对只是浪费时间和金钱，无济于事，”一位十分熟悉向南车供应列车的项目的日本高管表示。“一开始日本人和欧洲人都感觉未来恐怕会发生这种情况，但并没有意识到会这么快。中国的赶超如此迅速，他们根本想象不到要（与中国人）竞争美国的合同。”
外国铁路企业的经历，在许多人看来对航空、汽车、信息技术乃至绿色科技行业是一个不祥的预兆。分析人士在这些行业中观察到正在显现的行业战略，具有国家背景的企业利用进入中国国内市场的前景，争取到外资企业转让宝贵的技术，使自己几乎在一夜之间成为全球竞争者。
（待续）
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001034854
Having transferred high-speed rail technology to state-backed groups in exchange for access to a vast market, multinationals find they have created their own low-cost competitors
Wuhan station in central China was completed last December amid a spending programme to ease bottlenecks in the country’s ageing rail system. The investment formed a central component of the government’s stimulus package
There was more than a little historic symbolism on display as California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger posed for photos in front of a Chinese-built bullet train in Shanghai last week.
The “Governator” was on a shopping trip to Asia looking for trains, technology and funding for the planned high-speed upgrade to his state’s rail network, much of which was built in the 19th century by Chinese labourers.
“What I have seen is very, very impressive,” he said in Shanghai. “We hope China is part of the bidding process, along with other countries around the world, so that we can build high-speed rail as inexpensively as possible.”
Beijing could hardly have asked for a better celebrity endorsement for its “harmony express” high-speed trains, which its state-controlled rail companies are churning out for new lines across the country and beyond.
But for the European, Japanese and North American companies that have provided much of the technology for the country’s programme, the visit put the spotlight on a worrying trend.
In what many international executives see as a warning for other industries, these companies have spent years “transferring”, or selling, technology to state-backed partners in exchange for market access – only to be rewarded with shrinking market share in China as a result of state policies that favour local industry.
Now these companies find their high-speed technology has been “digested” – defined by the government as a multistep process of buying foreign technology, innovating on that existing platform then selling it under a domestic brand – by former Chinese partners. Furthermore, the foreigners find themselves competing head-to-head for tenders all over the world with Chinese companies selling digested high-speed technology at discount prices, often with cheap state bank financing thrown in.
The domestic high-speed rail industry has sprung up in a few short years. Although the country’s companies are yet to make a sale overseas, industry experts say the first is likely to be soon – whether to California or to one of a long list of countries eyeing the technology.
The impetus behind the industry’s development is the expansion of the domestic network, a project analysts say is almost certainly the biggest transport infrastructure undertaking since the construction of America’s railroads. These unprecedented plans are crucial for dealing with severe bottlenecks in China’s aging rail system, a constraint on regional and national growth. They also form a central component of the Rmb4,000bn economic stimulus package introduced in 2008.
Today the country has the world’s largest high-speed rail network, which it plans to nearly triple to more than 16,000km by 2020. That will provide enough track to stretch from Beijing to London and back. The government has budgeted well over $100bn each year for the next few years for building and upgrading the creaking system – a figure expected to account for more than half of all global railway spending during that period, according to World Bank estimates.
This enticing market has attracted every major rail group in the world. For more than a decade Beijing has welcomed Germany’s Siemens, France’s Alstom, Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Canada’s Bombardier among others to enter partnerships with state-controlled companies. Amid intense competition, technology transfer was a requirement.
In 2002, to challenge foreign dominance, the railway ministry unveiled the China Star, a home-grown high-speed system developed at a cost of Rmb140m by state-controlled manufacturers using only Chinese intellectual property. But less than two years later, the ministry announced that the core technology was “immature”.
The China Star was quietly shunted into a siding and forgotten as the Chinese companies were encouraged to ramp up digestion of foreign technology instead. As they did so, the ministry continually raised its “local content” requirements.
The ministry refused to answer questions from the Financial Times on these requirements but officials have publicly stated on a number of occasions that at least 70 per cent of equipment for any given rail project must be from domestic companies. As a result, there has been a steep fall in foreign companies’ market share.
In 2002 China invested nearly €4bn in the segment of the high-speed market in which foreign companies compete – carriages, signalling equipment and other high-tech track components – and foreign companies captured about 70 per cent of that. Today China invests as much as €17bn in the segment, of which foreign companies account for only 15-20 per cent, earning roughly the same as eight years ago, according to industry figures.
As it celebrated the introduction of locally assembled high-speed trains in 2007, the railway ministry neglected to mention that they were built on a Japanese technology platform provided by KHI and stressed instead national success in digesting foreign technology. The ministry crowed that state companies had managed to acquire high-speed technology at a cost “clearly below” the standard.
In a gleaming factory in the eastern port city of Qingdao, the latest results of that “digestion and re-innovation” programme are being tested. China Southern Railways Sifang is building bullet trains that can run at up to 380km/h and will travel on the Shanghai to Beijing line scheduled for completion by the end of 2012. A preview reveals trains with an uncanny resemblance to the latest Shinkansen bullet trains being introduced in Japan.
Luo Bin, vice-chief engineer at CSR Sifang’s Technology Development Centre, explains that his company is no longer co-operating with KHI, from which it bought the original technology for trains able to travel at up to 200km/h. “This is an innovative design based on the technology we had already digested,” Mr Luo says, gesturing at the sleek new machine sitting on the test tracks. “This is completely the result of our autonomous design. It’s got nothing to do with Bombardier or Siemens. It’s got nothing at all to do with Shinkansen.”
Yoshiyuki Kasai, chairman of Central Japan Railway, which runs high-speed services and helps parts of the Shinkansen system, says he warned KHI not to pursue a deal that could end up creating a low-cost competitor. “They didn’t take our advice. I think it’s been a bitter experience for them,” he told the FT in March.
“Of course they are angry but they know it would be a waste of time and money to fight against the Chinese government,” says one Japanese executive very familiar with the project to supply trains to CSR. “At the beginning the Japanese and also the Europeans were afraid this situation would happen in the future but they thought it would take more time. The Chinese catch-up speed was so fast; they could not have imagined they would be competing [with the Chinese] for contracts in the US.”
The experience of foreign rail companies is seen by many as ominous for industries from aviation and automobiles to information technology and green technology. In these and other sectors, analysts see strategies emerging in which state-backed companies use the prospect of access to their domestic market to secure transfers of valuable foreign technology that allow them to become global competitors virtually overnight.
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.”
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