2009年6月，香港东亚银行(Bank of East Asia)宣布，拟将旗下加拿大业务70%的股权售予中国最大的国有银行中国工商银行(ICBC)。此笔交易顺利获得了加拿大当局的批准。今年1月，东亚银行又宣布，拟将美国业务（仅包括纽约和加州的13家分行） 80%的股权出售给工行。
不过，此笔交易还在等待审批，没人知道何时会有结果。它在美国外国投资委员会(Cfius)手里已经押了好几个月。外国投资委员会是一家负责审查外国收购交易的跨部门政府机构。（该交易也需要获得美联储(Federal Reserve)的批准。）
说起来，外国投资委员会根本就不应该审查此笔潜在交易。照例说，只有在涉及国家安全时，才需要该机构的审核。没人怀疑最终审查结果，人们认为此笔交易肯定会获得批准。中方存在异议的是过程。中国的银行家和投资者表示，中国的投资环境比美国更透明、更公正。美国外国投资委员会在运作中毫无透明度可言，坐实了这一指控。（美国财政部官员辩称，考虑到该委员会所处理信息的市场敏感性，保密是必要的。）
在中方看来，美国对收购硬资产的中国买家怀有敌意，这种感觉有弊无利。有朝一日，中国对金融资产的胃口将会彻底消失。只怕这一天会来得太早，而不是太晚。
根据Dealogic的数据，今年迄今为止，外国对华投资额为333亿美元，其中58亿美元来自美国。美国是第二大买家。然而，迄今为止中国在美国的投资，仅为大多数银行家所预期将很快达到的数额的一小部分，也仅为流入中国投资的一小部分。汤森路透(Thomson Reuters)的数据显示，在中国的对外收购中，美国排在第10位，总交易金额为9.58亿美元，其中，中海油(CNOOC)今年1月以5.7亿美元收购Chesapeake Energy页岩油气项目部分权益的交易，就占到半数以上。
由于认为美元将会贬值，而美国政府将大幅提高债券发行量，以通过通胀弥补其财政缺口，海外投资者可能会寻求购买更多的硬资产，并减少金融投资的数量。
与此同时，中国政府对于在美金融资产风险的担忧十分明显。中国已削减了对按揭机构房利美(Fannie Mae)和房地美(Freddie Mac)债券、以及企业债券和股票的购买量，将购买活动集中在美国国债一项。此外，中国毫不犹豫地表达了对于美国政策与政治的不悦。在本月初美国国债信用评级下调后，中国曾公开表态，指出美国“依靠举债就能摆脱自己制造的麻烦的时代已经结束了”。
中国仍在继续向其他国家出口商品，目前坐拥3.2万亿美元外汇储备。不过近来，美国印制美元并以此迫使全世界，尤其是中国，面临两难局面——要么将汇率维持在当前水平并推高通胀，要么让本币升值——的策略，最近似乎产生了效果。美国外交关系委员会(Council on Foreign Relations)的数据显示，美元在中国政府外汇资产中所占的份额已出现下降，从2005年的占总金额的71%，下降到了目前的60%。
过去几周，中国也已经加快人民币的升值步伐。随着这一趋势的继续，海外资产，尤其是在美国的资产，将变得比以往更加廉价。
对于中国所称美国机制透明度不及中国的说法，美国银行业者不以为然，他们指出，中国也有一家负责审批交易的机构，也会一样随意行事、无法预测。然而，债权国的看法总是比债务国更为重要。随着时间的推移，中国将会着眼于在美国进行更多并购，而美国必须要习惯这一点。要饭的不能挑三拣四的道理，无论对人还是对国家，都是成立的。
译者/何黎
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001040405
In June 2009, Hong Kong-based Bank of East Asia announced it was selling a 70 per cent stake in its Canadian operations to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the largest of China’s state-owned banks. Approval from the Canadian authorities was not an issue. Then in January of this year, Bank of East Asia announced it was selling 80 per cent of its business in the US – which consists of a network of only 13 branches in New York and California – to ICBC.
That deal, however, is still awaiting approval, and nobody is certain what the timing is. For months the deal has been pending before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the interdepartmental government agency reviewing foreign acquisitions. (The deal still requires Federal Reserve approval as well.)
Arguably CFIUS should not be reviewing the potential purchase at all. It is supposed to vet deals only when there are national security issues. Nobody questions the ultimate outcome, since approval is expected. It is the process with which the Chinese are taking issue. Chinese bankers and investors say the investment landscape in China is more transparent and fair than that of the US, a charge that is given weight by CFIUS operating without any transparency at all. (Treasury officials cite the need for secrecy given the market-sensitive nature of the information the committee handles.)
The Chinese perception that the US is hostile to Chinese buyers of hard assets can only be a bad thing. At some point, which is likely to come sooner rather than later, China’s appetite for financial assets will diminish.
In the year to date, inbound investment into China totalled $33.3bn with $5.8bn of that coming from the US, according to data from Dealogic. The US was the second-largest acquirer. But, so far, outbound Chinese investment into the US is a fraction of what most bankers expect it will soon be or what investment into China is. The US was in 10th place for outward acquisitions from China, with a total deal value of $958m, of which more than half was accounted for by a single transaction, CNOOC’s $570m purchase of a stake in Chesapeake Energy shale oil and gas leases in January, according to Thomson Reuters.
Given the assumption that the dollar will depreciate and that the US government will issue far more debt to inflate its way out of its fiscal hole, investors from abroad are likely to seek to purchase more hard assets and fewer financial investments.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government’s concern with the riskiness of financial assets in the US is clear. It has already trimmed its purchases of the debt of the mortgage agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as corporate debt and shares, concentrating its purchases in Treasuries alone. Moreover, China has not hesitated to communicate its displeasure with US policies and politics. After the debt rating downgrade earlier this month, China was vocal in noting that the country could no longer “borrow its way out of messes of its own making”.
China continues to export to the rest of the world and today sits on $3,200bn in reserves. Recently though, the US strategy of printing dollars and presenting the world, most especially China, with a trade-off between maintaining their currencies at current levels and fuelling inflation or letting their currencies move up seems to be paying off. The dollar share of the Chinese government’s foreign assets is already dropping, down from 71 per cent of the total in 2005 to 60 per cent now, according to data from the Council on Foreign Relations.
In the past few weeks, China has also let its currency appreciate at a swifter rate. As that trend continues, assets abroad, especially in the US, will become ever more of a bargain.
US bankers dismiss Chinese claims that the US has a less transparent regime than China, pointing out that China too has a body that screens transactions and can be equally arbitrary and unpredictable. But the perceptions of a creditor nation will always matter more than those of a debtor one. Over time China will target more US acquisitions and the US will just have to get used to it. The fact that beggars cannot be choosers is true for nations as well as individuals.
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