THE HEADQUARTERS OF China Central Television, designed by Rem Koolhaas, a Dutch architect, looks like a monstrous space invader striding across Beijing. The headquarters of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation resembles an oil tanker emerging from a shimmering sea. It was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, an international firm of architects, and sits directly opposite China’s ministry of foreign affairs. All over central Beijing you see state companies erecting giant monuments to themselves, reflecting their huge power and their vision of themselves as agents of modernization.
由荷兰建筑师雷姆·库哈斯设计的中国中央电视台大楼看上去像是大步跨过北京城的巨形宇宙入侵者。坐落在中国外交部正对面的中国海洋石油总公司大楼由KPF建筑师事务所设计，好似闪闪烁烁的海面上隐约浮现的大油箱。走在北京市中心，你会看到一座座国企大楼拔地而起，像是一座座用来标榜手中巨大权力和作为现代化中坚形象的巨大纪念碑。
That vision is not confined to Beijing. Petronas, Malaysia’s state-owned oil company, has built 88-storey twin towers in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. In Moscow, VTB, Russia's second-largest state bank, has its headquarters in a sleek glass skyscraper in the spanking new Moskva City Business Complex.
这种景象不止出现于北京。国营的马来西亚石油公司在吉隆坡中心地带建造了一座88层的双子塔。在莫斯科，俄罗斯第二大国有银行——俄罗斯外贸银行将总部设立在位于快速发展的新莫斯科城商务区的一座光洁的玻璃幕墙摩天大厦里。
The most striking thing about state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is their sheer collective might in the emerging world. They make up most of the market capitalisation of China’s and Russia’s stockmarkets and account for 28 of the emerging world’s 100 biggest companies. True, the state-owned sector as a whole has been in rapid retreat. It now makes up only about a third of China’s and Russia’s GDP, against almost all of it two decades ago. But this decline is the result of selective pruning rather than liberalisation. Governments have been letting go of the small in order to strengthen their hold over the large.
国有企业（简称国企）最引人瞩目的是其在新兴市场展现出的的绝对掌控力。它们占据着中国资本市场和俄罗斯股票市场的多数份额，并跻身新兴国家百强公司中的28个席位。诚然，国有企业整体上已步入衰退，目前只占到中俄两国国内生产总值的约三分之一，而20年前则是全部份额。但这种衰退是选择性改革的结果，而非自由化使然。政府舍车保帅，通过放弃小型国企以加强对大型国企的掌控。
This has resulted in a couple of paradoxes. The SOEs are becoming wealthier and more powerful even as the overall state sector shrinks, and governments are tightening their grip on the commanding heights of the economy even as the private sector grows. The concentration of power in an inner circle of SOEs has been gathering pace over the past decade: China’s 121 biggest SOEs, for example, saw their total assets increase from $360 billion in 2002 to $2.9 trillion in 2010 (though their share of GDP has declined). And it has been given an extra boost by the 2007-08 financial crisis: in 2009 some 85% of China’s $1.4 trillion in bank loans went to state companies.
许多自相矛盾的事接踵而来。即便国家经济整体下行，国企却越来越资金雄厚，并愈发强势。政府在私营企业不断发展的同时，不断加紧对经济命脉的掌控。国企核心圈子的权力集中在过去的十年间不断严重。比如，中国最大的121家国企在2002年到2010年间，虽然总资产在国内生产总值中的份额已减少，其总量却从3600亿美元增加到29000亿。而2007到2008年的金融危机出人意料地给国企点了一把火：到了2009年，中国的14000亿美元银行借贷中有大约85%流向国企。
Governments are becoming more sophisticated owners. Only a handful of SOEs are still reporting directly to government ministries. Most governments prefer to exercise control through their ownership of shares: they have become the most powerful shareholders across much of the developing world from China to Thailand and from Russia to Saudi Arabia. Sometimes they hold all the shares, particularly in oil companies like Malaysia’s Petronas, transport firms like China’s Ocean Shipping Company and quasi-military outfits like Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation. But increasingly they prefer to dilute their shareholdings. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development defines a state-owned company as one in which the state owns more than 10% of the shares. Some governments have mastered the art of controlling companies through minority stakes: in Russia, for example, the state has retained golden shares in 181 firms.
政府对国企的管理方式愈发多样化。只有为数不多的国企还在向政府部委直接汇报业绩。各国政府更乐意通过控股来控制国企。在包括从中国到泰国、从俄罗斯到沙特在内的大部分发展中国家中，政府已经成了最强势的持股者。有时，政府持有全部股票，尤见于马石油这样的石油公司、中国远洋这样的运输公司以及俄罗斯联合飞机公司这样的准军事公司。但政府越来越乐意减持手中的股票。联合国贸易与发展会议对国有企业给出的定义是：国家持股超过10%的企业。一些国家深谙通过少数股权来掌控企业的技巧，比如在俄罗斯，政府已经放弃了181家企业的绝对控股权。
State enterprises have become more productive, thanks to a mixture of judicious pruning and relentless restructuring. In China their return on assets increased from 0.7% in 1998 to 6.3% in 2006 (though some say the figures are misleading). They have also become more international: companies that once served only their domestic market, such as Baosteel and Shanghai Electric, are striding onto the global stage. These three developments—more sophisticated methods of control, more productive use of assets and rapid globalisation—are going hand in hand.
借助精明的改革和雷厉风行的重组，国有企业变得越来越高效。在中国，国有企业的资产回报率从1998年的0.7%上行到2006年的6.3%（有人认为这些数据具有误导性）。国企越来越国际化：宝钢和上海电气这样曾经只专注于国内市场的企业也开始大举挺进国际舞台。国企发展的三种趋势——持股方式更加多样化、资产利用更加高效和快速国际化——正在同步并进。
The hard core of the state-owned sector are the national oil companies: the 13 giants that control more than three-quarters of the world’s oil supplies. Governments continue to keep a heavy hand on this industry. The Chinese state owns 90% of the shares in PetroChina and 80% of those in Sinopec. Even so, the national oil companies are being transformed by the same forces that are transforming the state-owned sector in general.
国营油企是国有企业的核心。13个石化巨头垄断了全球75%强的石油供应。政府坚持把控此行业。中国中央政府持有中石油90%、中石化80%的股份。即便如此，国营油企还是在走着其他国企走过的改制之路。
A few companies preserve the great tradition of state-sponsored incompetence and overmanning. Venezuela’s Petróleos de Venezuela, which is central to the patronage machine of the country’s president, Hugo Chávez, is an obvious example. More surprisingly, so is Mexico’s Pemex, which has successfully resisted numerous attempts to reform it. Malaysia’s Petronas has improved dramatically over the past five years. Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, which controls more than a tenth of the world’s oil and with it the fate of the world economy, is almost as well managed as private-sector oil companies such as Exxon Mobil. The Saudi monarchy has slimmed the company’s workforce, brought in professional managers, contracted out ancillary work and formed alliances with international companies.
一部分由国家掌控的企业历来就有业绩不佳、人员冗余的问题。委内瑞拉石油公司就是一个明显的例子，它成了该国总统查韦斯主要的扶持对象。更不可思议的是墨西哥国家石油公司，即便成功抗拒了多次对其改革的尝试，也难免落得相同的境地。马来西亚石油公司在过去五年间有了极大的改善。沙特的阿美联合石油公司控制了十分之一强的世界石油以及由其决定的世界经济的走势，却和埃克森美孚这样的私营油企一样，维持着良性运转。沙特王室削减了公司的员工人数、聘用专业经理人、将辅营业务外包并与跨国公司结成联盟。
The world is their oyster
国有企业，前途无限
More generally, national energy companies are no longer content just to sit at home and pump the oil or gas. They are increasingly venturing abroad in order to lock up future energy supplies or forming alliances with private-sector specialists to increase their access to expertise and ideas. Gazprom has been buying up oil and gas companies across eastern Europe and Asia. In 2008 it bought a 51% stake in Naftna Industrija Srbije, a Serbian energy giant. Chinese oil companies have been striking deals across Africa: in 2006 Sinopec bought a huge Angolan oil well for $692m. The multiplying alliances between national and international companies are not always successful: BP, for example, will not rush into any future deals with Russia’s Rosneft. But they are plugging national energy companies into the global market for people and ideas and closing the gap between the state-run and the private sector.
更普遍的情况是，国营能源公司已不再满足于坐在家里抽取石油或天然气了。他们愈发频繁地到国外投机经营，以确保未来能源供应或者与私营公司的专业人士合作来提升业务水平并获得好的创意。俄罗斯天然气工业股份公司一直在东欧和亚洲全额收购石油和天然气公司。2008年它买进了塞尔维亚能源巨头——塞尔维亚石油工业公司51%的股份。中国石油企业也已在非洲开展业务：2006年中石化以6.92亿美元购进安哥拉一座大型油井。而国有企业和跨国公司的联姻却并不总是成功：比如英国石油公司和俄罗斯石油公司在今后合作的可能性渺茫。但国有能源公司正在架起连接国际人才、创意市场的桥梁并逐步缩小与私营企业的差距。
State capitalism also has a collection of companies that sit at the opposite end of the ownership scale from national energy companies: national champions that formally are privately owned but enjoy a huge amount of either overt or covert support from their respective governments. Sometimes such governments prefer to exercise their patronage at arm’s length because they have little experience of the sector; this is often true of the IT industry in China. Sometimes they offer their patronage to a private company after it has become a winner. Either way the end result is the creation of a new class of state companies: national champions that may not be owned by governments but are nevertheless closely linked to them.
在国家资本主义中还有另外一种公司模式，它迥异于国营能源企业：一些行业内称雄的全国性企业名义上属于私营，却或明或暗地受到政府的大力资助。有时政府更乐意在力所能及的范围内提供赞助，这样做是因为政府对该行业并不熟悉。中国的IT界就是这样。而有时，当在一家私营企业成为业内领头羊后，政府才会向其施以援手。无论哪种方式，最终都会孕育新的国企群体：即便不为政府所有，但也与其密切相关的能在国内执牛耳的企业。
China’s Lenovo likes to think of itself as a private-sector computer company, but the Chinese Academy of Sciences provided it with seed money (and still owns lots of shares), and the government has repeatedly stepped in to smooth its growth, not least when it acquired IBM’s personal-computer division for $1.25 billion in 2004. Brazil’s Vale also considers itself a private-sector mining company, but the government treats it as a national champion and recently forced its boss, Roger Agnelli, to step aside because it did not like his plans to sack workers. There is a long list of national champions that operate in the shadow of the state, including China’s Geely in cars, Huawei in telecoms equipment and Haier in white goods.
中国的联想集团乐于将自己视为私营电脑公司，但中国科学院不仅向其提供了第一桶金，至今还持有它的很多股票，政府不断出面为其发展扫除障碍，尤其是在2004年联想要以12.5亿美元收购IBM个人电脑业务时。巴西的淡水河谷公司也自视为私营矿企，但巴西政府却将其当做国有企业，并在最近因为无法认同其老板罗杰·阿格内利的裁员计划而迫使其下台。这里所说的受政府庇护的业内称雄的全国性企业还有很多，包括中国的吉利汽车、华为通讯器材和海尔家电。
The wealth of nations
国家财富
State capitalists are not just running companies; they are also managing huge pools of capital in the form of sovereign-wealth funds (SWFs). Leviathan is becoming a finance capitalist as well as a captain of industry.
国家资本主义不只关乎公司运营，亦涵盖通过主权财富基金来运营巨额资本。怪兽利维坦摇身一变成了金融资本家和产业寡头。
The sovereign-wealth business was pioneered decades ago by the petrostates and by Singapore. The Kuwait Investment Authority was set up in 1953. But more recently the business has been turbocharged by two developments: the surge in energy prices and China’s accumulation of a vast current-account surplus. Today’s SWFs account for some of the world’s biggest pools of capital. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority controls $627 billion, putting it in the same league as some of the largest American mutual funds. Saudi Arabia’s SAMA foreign-holdings company in December 2011 controlled $473 billion, China’s SAFE Investment Company $568 billion and China Investment Corporation $410 billion. In all, the world’s sovereign-wealth funds control about $4.8 trillion in assets, a figure that is likely to rise to $10 trillion by the end of this decade.
主权财富业由石油国家组织和新加坡几十年前共同开创。科威特投资局于1953年设立。但最近的两项变化加速了这个行业的发展：能源价格的飙升和中国积攒了巨额的经常收支盈余。现今的主权财富基金算得上世界上最大的资本源之一了。阿布扎比投资局掌握有6270亿美元资金，并将其投入到美国最大的几家共同基金所在的联盟里。2011年12月，沙特的SAMA外商控股坐拥4730亿美元、中国华安投资有限公司5680亿美元、中投集团4100亿美元。全球主权财富基金总共掌管着48000亿美元财产，这一数字在2020年前会增长到十万亿美元。
Sovereign-wealth funds come in two varieties: “savings” funds intended to find productive homes for investments, and “development” funds that also promote economic development. China Investment Corporation has focused on producing a portfolio of financial assets, for example, whereas Abu Dhabi’s various investment funds have been more interested in funding the region’s economic development to prepare for the day when the oil runs out. In 2008 Abu Dhabi created a fund that specialises in investing in high-tech companies, both at home and abroad. In its first big deal it formed an alliance with Advanced Micro Devices, an American chipmaker, to create a local semiconductor manufacturer, GLOBALFOUNDRIES.
主权财富基金有两个分支：一个是储蓄基金，基于为投资者提供高效安全的方式，另一个是发展基金，基于促进经济发展。比如，中投集团侧重于提供涉及金融财产的一揽子方案，而阿布扎比投资局的各种投资基金则更看重为地区经济注入发展资金以做好准备应对有朝一日石油资源的枯竭。2008年，阿布扎比政府设立了一个专注于投资高科技企业的基金，业务分部海内外。它接的第一个大单子促成了与美国芯片制造商AMD的结盟，共同创建了一家当地半导体生产商——环球铸造。
The financial crisis of 2007-08 shifted the argument in favour of the second kind of fund. Soon after China Investment Corporation was set up in September 2007 it saw the money it had put into American investment banks turn to ashes. Petrostate SWFs have increased their emphasis on investing in science and research. Sovereign-wealth funds in Kuwait, Qatar, Russia, China, Kazakhstan and Ireland have been asked to support domestic financial institutions. Almost all funds are taking a more active interest in the way the companies they own are managed, for example by demanding a seat on the board.
2007-2008年的金融危机改变了人们对于第二种基金的喜好。中投集团于2007年九月设立后不久，其投入到美国投行的钱便化为乌有。石油国家组织的主权财富基金提高了对科学研究投资的重视。而位于科威特、卡塔尔、俄罗斯、中国、哈萨克斯坦和爱尔兰的主权财富基金则被要求资助国内金融机构。差不多所有基金都更加积极地对所拥有的公司的管理方式产生了兴趣，比如要求获得董事会的席位。
Nasser Saidi, chief economist of the Dubai International Financial Centre, argues that the rise of the emerging world will inevitably force the global financial system to change, from a hub-and-spokes model (with London and New York acting as the hubs) to a spider’s-web model of many interconnected hubs. The 2007-08 crisis has dramatically speeded up this process: SWFs now like to do much of their business with each other rather than going through rich-world intermediaries. In 2009 China Investment Corporation and the Qatar Investment Authority signed a joint-venture agreement. In the following year a consortium of nine funds, including the Government of Singapore’s Investment Corporation, China Investment Corporation and the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, invested $1.8 billion in BTG Pactual, a Brazilian investment bank spun off from UBS, a Swiss bank.
纳赛尔·撒义迪是迪拜国际金融中心的首席经济学家，他认为新兴国家的崛起会不可避免的改变国际金融体系的游戏规则：从核心辐射状结构（伦敦和纽约充当着这种核心）变成网状结构（拥有多个互联的核心）。2007-2008年的经济危机极大地加速了这一进程：主权财富基金现如今喜欢互相做生意而而非充当富国的中介机构。2009年中投集团和卡塔尔投资局签署了一项合资协议。接下来的一年，包含由新加坡政府投资集团、中国投资集团以及阿布扎比投资委员会在内的九家基金联营的国际财团向巴西BTG Pactual银行投资18亿美元。这家巴西投行曾由瑞士银行分离出来。
It is possible for a country to have any or all of these institutions in place without being a member of the state-capitalist club. Norway boasts the world’s 13th-biggest oil company by revenue, Statoil, and its third-biggest sovereign-wealth fund, the Government Pension Fund, with $560 billion in assets, but requires both of them to behave like regular companies. These various elements can also be put together in a variety of ways. The next section will look at some of the different forms that state capitalism can take.
即便不是国家资本主义俱乐部的一员，一个国家也可以让上述这些机构中的任何一家或者全部运转起来。挪威拥有收入排世界第十三的石油公司——挪威石油公司，该国第三大主权财富基金——政府养老金基金拥有资产5600亿美元。挪威政府要求二者像普通公司一样运营。各种企业元素可以通过各种方式结合起来。下一节我们将探讨国家资本主义可以采取的不同形式。
