U.S.-China Tensions Play Out in Deal Probe
WASHINGTON -- Political tensions between the U.S. and China appear ready to rise as economic ties between the two nations deepen. Exhibit A is the flap over Beijing-based Lenovo Group Ltd.'s plan to acquire a unit of International Business Machines Corp.
The deal would be a milestone in trans-Pacific commerce: the first billion-dollar takeover in the U.S. by a mainland Chinese company. The high-level Bush-administration review of Lenovo's plan to buy IBM's personal-computer unit -- prompted by three top congressional Republicans worried about Lenovo's close ties to the authoritarian government -- shows Americans won't take that new era lightly.
"It is an icon of American business," says Michael Wessel, a deal skeptic who sits on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. The bipartisan panel examines China issues and advises Congress. "It's a symbol of China's coming of age," he adds.
Others see the controversy as protectionist backlash. The issue is mainly a "concern of U.S. isolationist forces who oppose globalization and economic integration," Paul Denlinger, founder of China Business Strategy, a consulting firm that helps companies crack the Chinese market, wrote in a recent essay.
The intensifying fears have parallels with those a decade ago of a Japanese economic takeover -- but with an overlay of military and ideological tension. Japan was a free-market democracy staunchly allied with the U.S., while China's blend of communism and capitalism, and its own geopolitical ambitions and nuclear arsenal, make many Americans nervous.
"Essentially, it is the Chinese government that is the buyer of this company," says Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Small Business Committee. "My concern here is that we're going to reach a point where economic security becomes an issue of national security."
The acquisition appears to be part of a new trend. For years, China gobbled up U.S. bonds and stocks with hard currency. In 2004, the government of China's foreign-exchange holdings topped $600 billion and more than 70% of that was in U.S. government-affiliated bonds and securities, says Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics in Washington, who tracks official Chinese statistics.
China's direct investment in American corporate assets has historically been much lower -- a little more than $300 million at the end of 2003, by the latest U.S. government estimate -- but the pace appears to be quickening. The Lenovo deal was one of a total of 22 Chinese acquisitions announced in the U.S. market in 2004, double the deals announced in 2003, according to Thomson Financial, the market-research firm.
In August, Sinopec International Petroleum, of Beijing, spent $150 million on First International Oil Co., a U.S. firm with energy holdings in Kazakhstan. In December, Eye Care Centers of America, of San Antonio, was acquired for $450 million by a Hong Kong eyewear firm and a San Francisco investment company. And the China National Offshore Oil Corp. is reportedly considering a $13 billion bid for Unocal Corp., an El Segundo, California, energy company.
On the way to becoming an export powerhouse -- and to a $100 billion-plus trade surplus with the U.S. -- Beijing has drawn howls about unfair practices. One of the biggest complaints is that China, which for years has resisted calls to let the yuan float free, is keeping its currency too low and making its goods artificially cheap on world markets.
"What's going on in Washington is people are getting fed up with the Chinese," says Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat sponsoring legislation pressuring China to revalue its currency.
Unlike Japan during the 1980s and early 1990s, China's economy has been fairly open to U.S. investment. But moves by U.S. companies to set up factories in the mainland have triggered complaints about the "outsourcing" of American jobs overseas.
Now, as Chinese companies eye U.S. assets more acquisitively, fears are on the rise about the possible loss of economic power and the transfer of technology to a potentially hostile nation.
Such concerns have long hung over U.S.-Sino relations. Indeed, the only time that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) -- the three-decade-old federal-government group reviewing the Lenovo deal -- has ever formally blocked a purchase was in 1990, when President George H.W. Bush stopped the sale of a Seattle aircraft-parts maker to China. In 2003, a Hong Kong conglomerate backed out of a bid to take a stake in Global Crossing Ltd. after CFIUS launched a review over worries about a Chinese magnate controlling the company's global undersea communications network.
The high-tech worries often blur quickly from commercial to security concerns. During the late 1990s, the People's Republic was accused of obtaining U.S. nuclear secrets, spurring a tightening of security at the nation's nuclear labs. And the Bush administration has repeatedly sanctioned Chinese companies for trading with Iran, a country it accuses of illicitly pursuing a nuclear weapon.
The State Department's top proliferation expert, and a leading administration hawk, John Bolton, vowed this week that the Bush administration will keep up pressure on China to "help change the way China and other countries with proliferation problems behave." Mr. Bolton noted the administration sanctioned Chinese entities a total of 62 times, far more than the eight sanctions imposed during President Clinton's eight years in office. Mr. Bolton's speech, one of the bluntest critiques of Chinese behavior heard from the administration, was also directed at the European Union.
Critics of the Lenovo deal wonder whether it will give China access to domestic technology that could be adapted for military purposes. Lenovo officials say the transaction isn't a security threat. And IBM -- which has a big stake in shedding the money-losing PC unit -- is working in Washington to tamp down concerns.
Some U.S. officials also fear the deal would give China a toehold in the corporate world from which it could conduct industrial espionage. Lenovo was launched in the mid-1980s with an investment from the state-controlled Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the academy would retain a 30% stake in the newly organized company; IBM would have an 18.9% stake.
The multi-agency review, led by the U.S. Treasury Department, is scheduled to be completed in mid-March. Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America, a U.S. tech trade group, says he would be surprised if the administration bars the deal. "At the end of the day, it's a commodity product," he says.
But for politicians like Mr. Manzullo, the transaction fuses the panoply of fears about China. "The Chinese government runs a nonmarket economy which does not play the by the rules of fair trade," he said in a statement issued when he formally challenged the purchase last month. "This sale could lead to the Chinese government unfairly taking over the global market for personal computers." 联想收购案触动美国政治神经
随著中美两国的经济联系日益紧密，两国之间的政治紧张气氛看来随时可能升级。一个例子就是中国公司联想集团 (Lenovo Group Ltd.) 收购国际商业机器公司 (International Business Machines Corp., 简称 IBM) 个人电脑子公司的计划所引起的轩然大波。
这宗收购堪称太平洋两岸商务往来历史上的一块里程碑，这是中国大陆企业首次在美国进行几十亿美元的收购。布什政府高层对联想收购计划展开调查，说明美国人并不愿意轻易迈入这个新时代， 3 位有影响的共和党议员对联想与中国政府间的密切关系表示了担忧。
“这是美国企业的标志，”对这宗交易持怀疑态度的麦克?韦塞尔 (Michael Wessel) 表示。韦塞尔是美中经济和安全审议委员会 (U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission) 的成员，这个由两党成员组成的委员会负责调查中国问题，并向美国国会做出建议。
但也有人认为，这种反对是保护主义的回潮。帮助美国公司打入中国市场的咨询公司 China Business Strategy 的创始人保罗?丹林格 (Paul Denlinger) 在最近的一份报告中写道，这基本上是美国孤立主义者的担忧，他们反对全球化、经济一体化等。
这样的众说纷纭不由令人想起 10 年前日本大举收购美国资产时的风波，但不同的是这次掺杂了更多的军事和意识形态担忧。日本是一个有著自由市场经济和民主政权的国家，向来是美国的坚定盟国，但中国是共产主义和资本主义的混合产物，具有地缘政治野心，并拥有核武器，这让许多美国人感到紧张。
“买下 IBM 个人电脑子公司的实际是中国政府，”美国众议院小企业委员会 (House Small Business Committee) 的主席、伊利诺伊州共和党人唐纳德?曼祖罗 (Donald Manzullo) 表示，“我担心经济安全问题可能会逐步威胁到国土安全。”
联想的收购看来代表了一股新趋势。中国多年来一直在用大量的硬通货买入美国债券和股票。据跟踪中国官方统计数据的华盛顿国际经济研究所 (Institute for International Economics) 高级研究员尼古拉斯?拉迪 (Nicholas Lardy) 称， 2004 年中国政府的外汇储备已超过 6,000 亿美元，其中 70% 以上是美国政府相关债券。
相比之下，中国对美国企业资产的直接投资向来很少，根据最新的美国政府估计数据，截至 2003 年年末只稍稍超出 3 亿美元，但速度似乎正在加快。市场研究公司 Thomson Financial 的数据显示，包括联想的交易， 2004 年美国市场中宣布的中国收购案共有 22 宗，较 2003 年增长了一倍。
去年 8 月，中国石化集团 (Sinopec) 旗下的国际石油勘探开发公司 (Sinopec International Petroleum) 斥资 1.50 亿美元收购在哈萨克斯坦拥有能源储藏的美国第一国际石油公司 (First International Oil Co.) 。去年 12 月，美国 Eye Care Centers of America 以 4.50 亿美元被香港一家眼镜公司和洛杉矶一家投资公司收购。另据报告，中国海洋石油总公司 (China National Offshore Oil Corp.) 正在考虑出价 130 亿美元收购加州能源公司加州联合石油公司 (UNOCAL Corp.) 。
在成为出口大国的道路上，中国招来了不少不公平贸易行为的批评；中美贸易顺差现已超出 1,000 亿美元。最大的抱怨之一就是中国政府人为压低人民币汇率，使其出口商品在世界市场保持了低价；该国多年来一直在抵制让人民币汇率自由浮动的呼吁。
“在华盛顿，人们对中国的容忍已经达到了极限，”发起试图迫使中国重估人民币币值议案的纽约民主党参议员查尔斯?舒默 (Charles Schumer) 称。
和 1980-1990 年代初期的日本不同，中国经济张开了双臂欢迎美国投资。只是美国公司在中国大陆开设工厂的行为，在美国国内引起了美国向海外输出就业机会的抱怨。
现在，随著中国公司更多地从收购角度关注美国资产，一些人开始担心美国的经济实力可能由此丧失，而且技术转移的目的国可能对美国并不怀有善意。
在中美关系中，这类担忧从来就没有消失过。但美国海外投资委员会 (Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., 简称 CFIUS) 迄今只正式否决了一宗收购交易，那是 1990 年，当时的美国总统老布什 (George H.W. Bush) 否决了将西雅图一家飞机配件制造商出售给中国的计划。目前，这个有 30 年历史的联邦政府机构 CFIUS 也在参与审查联想的收购计划。 2003 年在 CFIUS 针对环球电讯 (Global Crossing Ltd.) 全球海底通信网络可能会被中国商业巨头控制的担忧展开调查后，香港一家集团企业退出了环球电讯股份的竞购。
围绕高科技收购的商业顾虑总是容易被扩大成安全顾虑。 1990 年代末中国曾被批评拥有美国核资产，由此美国大大加强了核实验室的安全措施。而且，布什政府也已因中国公司与伊朗进行贸易，多次制裁中国公司；美国谴责伊朗正在偷偷地研发核武器。
美国国务院首席武器扩散专家、布什政府中主要的强硬派人士约翰?波顿 (John Bolton) 本周誓言，布什政府将继续施加压力，迫使中国“改变其在武器扩散问题上的做法”。他指出，布什政府已对中国实体实施 62 次制裁，远远超出克林顿 (Clinton) 时期的 8 次制裁。波顿的讲话是布什政府中对中国最为严厉的批评之一。
对联想收购案持反对态度的人指出，收购可能会让中国有机会接触到可用于军事目的的技术。联想官员们表示，这宗收购并没有安全威胁。而从出售亏损个人电脑子公司可获得巨大利益的 IBM 也正在华盛顿试图打消这些顾虑。
一些美国官员担心这宗交易会让中国在美国企业界获得一个立足点，基于此他们将有能力开展工业间谍活动。联想集团是由 1980 年代中期、由国有的中国科学院 (Chinese Academy of Sciences) 出资成立；联想完成收购 IBM 个人电脑子公司后，中国科学院将在新公司中保留 30% 的股份， IBM 将持股 18.9% 。
这项由美国财政部为首的多家机构进行的审查定于 3 月中旬完成。行业组织美国信息技术协会 (Information Technology Association of America) 的主席哈瑞斯?米勒 (Harris Miller) 表示，如果政府否决这项收购，他会感到意外，“毕竟，个人电脑已经成为大宗商品。”
但对于曼祖罗等政界人士来说，这宗交易点燃了围绕中国的种种担忧。“中国不是市场经济，而且不遵守公平贸易规则，”曼祖罗上个月发布的一份正式抨击联想收购的声明称，“这宗出售可能导致中国政府不公平地占据全球个人电脑市场。”
