特朗普用保护主义对付中国

Its deliberations are opaque and its decisions have the power to kill multibillion-dollar international business deals. Its acronym strikes fear into companies and investment bankers. Its day-to-day staff is an earnest and elite band of 16 Ivy League-educated lawyers who labour deep inside the US Treasury, ostensibly to protect America’s economic future. And it is poised to gain a lot more power.

它的想法让人捉摸不透，它做出的决定有能力扼杀价值数十亿美元的国际商业交易。它的首字母缩写简称让企业和投资银行家胆寒。它的日常工作人员是一个非常认真的精英群体，由16名拥有常青藤联盟(Ivy League)教育背景的律师组成，他们在位于美国财政部的办公室里辛苦工作，表面上看是为了保护美国经济的未来。它还将获得更多权力。

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (Cfius) is one of the most powerful — and enigmatic — regulators in the world. An inter-agency committee that brings together defence and intelligence staff with economic policymakers, it was created to vet inbound foreign investment for potential national security threats.

美国外国投资委员会（Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, 简称CFIUS）是世界最强大、最神秘的监管机构之一。作为一个将国防和情报人员与经济政策制定者集合在一起的跨机构委员会，CFIUS的创立就是为了审查入境外国投资是否有可能威胁国家安全。

Yet reforms being pushed by President Donald Trump and contained in a bill now working its way through Congress would, if enacted, expand its workload from a few hundred transactions a year to potentially thousands.

然而，唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)总统推动的、包含在目前正等待国会通过的一项法案中的改革，如果获得通过成为法律，该委员会的工作量将从每年几百宗交易增加到可能数千宗。

And like so much of economic policymaking in Washington these days, it has one target in mind: China and its appetite for US intellectual property.

而且，正如华盛顿目前的许多经济政策制定一样，CFIUS心中有一个目标：中国及其对美国知识产权的胃口。

The planned reforms fit with an international pattern. From Australia to the EU, jurisdictions are tightening their scrutiny of inbound investment largely in reaction to what many governments suspect has been a strategically driven Chinese buying spree that in the US alone has been worth $116.6bn in the past five years according to the Rhodium Group, a consultancy.

这些计划中的改革契合了当前的一种国际模式。从澳大利亚到欧盟，各司法辖区都在收紧对入境投资的审查，主要是为了应对许多政府怀疑的受战略驱动的中资收购热潮。咨询公司荣鼎咨询(Rhodium Group)的数据显示，过去5年，中国企业仅在美国就进行了价值1166亿美元的收购。

However, the US proposals go further. For the first time, the bill now under consideration would give Cfius broad jurisdiction over major outbound investment by US companies, that since 1990 has been worth some $250bn, and the overseas ventures of US-based multinationals. And for that reason it has provoked a growing revolt from blue-chip American companies such as General Electric and IBM and a debate in Congress over how best to curtail Chinese pressure on US companies.

然而，美国提出的对策更加激进。目前正在审议中的这一法案，将首次给予CFIUS针对美国企业的大手笔对外投资（1990年以来已达到约2500亿美元）、以及总部位于美国的跨国公司的海外合资公司的广泛管辖权。出于这一原因，该法案引发了通用电气(GE)、IBM等蓝筹美国公司越来越多的抗议，以及美国国会围绕如何最大限度地减轻中国对美国企业压力的辩论。

The plans for Cfius strike to the heart of the Trump administration’s dilemma over how to deal with China, which it has called a strategic “competitor”. White House officials and their allies in Congress are struggling to respond to what they see as an existential economic threat from a China that aims to be the leader in artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles and other new industries.

CFIUS相关计划直抵特朗普政府就如何应对中国而面临的两难的核心，特朗普政府称中国为战略“竞争对手”。白宫官员以及他们在国会的盟友正在努力应对他们认为关乎生死的来自中国的经济威胁，中国的目标是成为人工智能、自动驾驶汽车等新兴产业的领导者。

The belief in that threat is driving much of Mr Trump’s trade and foreign policy. A national security strategy unveiled in December says protection of the US “innovation base” is an important objective. Now at the centre of the Trump administration’s China trade policy is an investigation launched into Beijing’s intellectual property regime.

特朗普相信上述威胁存在，这驱动着他的大部分贸易和外交政策。去年12月公布的一项国家安全战略称，保护美国“创新基础”是一项重要目标。如今，处于特朗普政府对华贸易政策核心的是对中国的知识产权制度发起的调查。

However, many of those plans are causing anxiety or are actively opposed by some leading US companies which see their growth prospects as closely tied to China, the second-largest economy in the world. Many fear the new rules would effectively become a murky system of technology controls and place a major regulatory damper on one of the most dynamic parts of the US economy.

然而，许多此类计划正在引发焦虑，或者遭到了美国一些领先企业的强烈反对，后者认为自身的增长前景与全球第二大经济体中国密切相关。许多企业担心，新规则实际上将变成一个晦涩不明的技术控制制度，给美国经济最具活力的部分之一套上巨大的监管枷锁。

“This is a radical change,” says Rod Hunter, who oversaw Cfius while on President George W Bush’s National Security Council and is now a partner at law firm Baker McKenzie. “You would basically turn the US technology industry into a regulated industry. If there was ever a way to turn the US technology industry into [failed carmaker] British Leyland this is how you do it.”

“这是剧变，基本上会把美国科技业变成一个受监管的行业。如果有什么办法把美国科技业变成（失败的汽车制造商）英国利兰(British Leyland)，这么干就行。”罗德?亨特(Rod Hunter)说，他曾在小布什(George W Bush)总统的国家安全委员会(National Security Council)负责监督CFIUS，现在是贝克?麦坚时国际律师事务所(Baker & McKenzie)合伙人。

One reason why the Cfius bill is attracting a lot of attention is that it is one of the few ideas that has won support from both Republicans and Democrats in an otherwise divided Congress this year.

CFIUS法案吸引大量关注的原因之一是，它是今年在原本分裂的国会中同时赢得了共和党和民主党人支持的少数几项提议之一。

“China has weaponised investment in an attempt to vacuum up our advanced technologies and simultaneously undermine our defence industrial base,” John Cornyn, the Texas Republican who is the legislation’s chief backer, told Congress this month.

上述立法的主要支持者、德克萨斯州共和党议员约翰?科宁(John Cornyn)本月对国会表示：“中国已经把投资武器化，试图掏空我们的先进技术，同时破坏我们的国防工业基础。”

Over the past few years, scrutiny of Chinese purchases of US and European semiconductor and other technology companies has increased. But the proposed legislation would require Cfius to monitor overseas joint ventures in places like China that US officials fear often involve the forced transfer of vital and potentially sensitive technologies in exchange for doing business.

过去几年，针对中资收购美欧半导体及其他科技公司的审查已经有所增加。但此次拟议的立法将要求CFIUS对位于中国等地的海外合资企业进行监管，美国官员担心这些地方常常迫使外国企业转让关键的、具有潜在敏感性的技术，以换取经营许可。

“We’re all for [overseas investment],” says Robert Pittenger, the North Carolina Republican sponsoring the legislation in the House of Representatives. “We just don’t want our businesses in a position where they are coerced or they are exploited by a foreign government?.?.?.?to obtain critical data and security-related [technologies].”

“我们完全赞同（海外投资），”支持上述立法的北卡罗来纳州共和党众议员罗伯特?皮滕杰(Robert Pittenger)说，“我们只是不想让我们的企业处于被胁迫，或者被希望获取关键数据及安全相关（技术）的外国政府利用的境地。”

Critics say export control rules provide a way to monitor the relatively small number of transactions involving sensitive technologies. They fear the legislation would vastly expand the mandate of the overstretched Cfius and harm the ability of US businesses to compete by subjecting any overseas deals they made to the rigorous scrutiny of Cfius.

批评人士表示，出口控制规则提供了监控数量相对较少的涉敏感技术的交易的一种渠道。他们担心，这项立法将极大地扩大已不堪重负的CFIUS的职权范围，损害美国企业参与竞争的能力，因为美国企业达成的任何海外协议都要提交CFIUS接受严格审查。

The committee reviewed around 240 transactions but that could expand to thousands or even tens of thousands of business deals around the world, experts say.

专家表示，该委员会过去每年审查约240宗交易，但今后可能扩大到全球范围内数千、甚至数万宗商业交易。

Some companies have backed the legislation, with software company Oracle declaring in a November letter that the changes were needed to close loopholes that now were “putting at risk critical innovations that bolster and ensure our national security”. But tech rivals such as IBM have mounted a public fight against the bill.

一些企业已表示支持这项立法，软件公司甲骨文(Oracle)在去年11月的一封信中宣称，需要变革来堵住如今“将支撑和确保我们国家安全的关键创新置于危险之中”的漏洞。但IBM等技术竞争对手已对该法案发起了公开反对。

“A system of technology controls that unilaterally stops American firms from doing business abroad will not advance national security interests if it simply hands markets to foreign competitors,” Chris Padilla, IBM’s vice-president of government and regulatory affairs, told the Senate Banking Committee during a January hearing. The current version of the bill would capture all manner of innocuous business done overseas by IBM such as the sale of servers or the licensing of trademarks “that could not be less threatening to national security”.

IBM负责政府和监管事务的副总裁克里斯?帕迪拉(Chris Padilla)在1月举行的一次听证会上对美国参议院银行业委员会(Senate Banking Committee)表示：“一个单边阻止美国公司在海外开展业务的技术控制制度，如果仅仅把市场送给外国竞争对手的话，将不会推进国家安全利益。”该法案的当前版本将覆盖IBM在海外进行的各种无害业务，如“对国家安全毫无威胁”的服务器销售或商标授权。

The pushback from business has forced congressional aides to promise the release of a finessed version soon. Treasury officials have also said that they would make sure that any Cfius interest in outbound investment remains narrowly focused on national security. “From Cfius’ perspective we don’t want to be looking at lots of transactions that are unlikely ever to raise national security concerns,” says a senior US Treasury official.

来自商界的阻力迫使国会助理承诺尽快拿出一个巧妙修改的版本。美国财政部官员也表示，他们将确保CFIUS对对外投资的任何关注都仅限于国家安全。财政部一位高级官员称：“从CFIUS的角度来看，我们不希望审查大量根本不大可能引发国家安全担忧的交易。”

There are also signs that some in Congress see the business concerns as valid and would like to see the outbound measures put into separate legislation updating the export control regime, a much more transparent process managed by the US commerce department.

也有迹象显示，一些国会议员认为这些商业担忧是合理的，并希望把针对对外投资的措施放入单独的立法，升级出口控制制度——一个由美国商务部管理的更加透明的程序。

Mr Pittenger says he and his colleagues are eager to address business concerns. “We’re listening. We’re listening very hard. We want to be responsive,” he says. But he and Mr Cornyn also say they remain committed to monitoring transactions involving overseas joint ventures, with a particular eye on China. They have accused opponents of being alarmist and even unpatriotic.

皮滕杰表示，他和同僚迫切希望解决商业上的担忧。“我们在倾听。我们非常努力地倾听。我们希望有所回应。”他说。但他和科宁还表示，他们仍致力于监控涉及海外合资企业的交易，尤其紧盯中国。他们指责反对者危言耸听，甚至不爱国。

“I would call this a patriotism deficit on their part,” Mr Cornyn said in a speech last month that raised eyebrows in a business community that he accused of trying to “perpetuate the status quo”. Mr Pittenger, meanwhile, likens abandoning the proposal about overseas deals to removing airport security checks because of complaints that the queues have become too long.

“我称这是他们身上的爱国主义赤字，”科宁在上月的一次演讲中表示，他在演讲中指责商界试图“维持现状”引发了商界不满。与此同时，皮滕杰把放弃针对海外交易的措施，比作因有人抱怨排队的队伍太长而取消机场安检。

“Would that be a smart thing to do? No. And it would not be smart to allow people to bypass a security review by Cfius,” he says.

他说：“这样做明智吗？不明智。让人们绕过CFIUS的安全审查也不明智。”

The debate over Cfius reform in Congress comes as the committee and its staff are stretched by a rising caseload that is more complex than it used to be.

美国国会围绕CFIUS改革爆发争论，正值该委员会及其工作人员被越来越多、比过去更加复杂的待处理案件搞得精疲力竭之际。

Lawyers who work on transactions reviewed by Cfius say even simple cases have in recent years begun to face procedural delays and complain that the Trump administration was too slow to nominate many of the appointees who sit on its panel. Things have become better in recent months and especially since Heath Tarbert, the assistant treasury secretary who oversees Cfius, began work at the end of September.

为CFIUS审查的交易提供法律服务的律师们表示，近年来，即便简单的案件也开始面临程序上的拖延，并抱怨特朗普政府在提名任命委员会许多成员方面动作过于迟缓。最近几个月，情况有所好转，尤其是自负责监督CFIUS的助理财长希思?塔博特(Heath Tarbert)去年9月底开始履职之后。

But Cfius experts also detect signs that the balance between economic and defence interests on the committee has shifted under the Trump administration. The Pentagon and the wider intelligence community appear to have more power on the committee, lawyers say, and that has affected cases, particularly when China is involved.

但CFIUS专家也发现了一些迹象，即在特朗普政府的领导下，该委员会在经济和国防利益之间的平衡已经发生了变化。律师们表示，五角大楼和情报部门似乎在该委员会中拥有更大的权力，而这影响到了案件，尤其是当涉及中国的时候。

Cfius’ rejection in January of a $1.2bn bid by Jack Ma’s Ant Financial to buy MoneyGram was understandable given the US payment company’s access to sensitive personal data of millions of Americans, including government employees and US soldiers, experts say. But when Cfius intervened in November to force Germany’s Biotest to sell its US operations before it would approve the takeover of the blood plasma products maker by a Chinese investor, it caused a perplexed reaction from some.

CFIUS今年1月否决了马云(Jack Ma)旗下蚂蚁金服(Ant Financial)以12亿美元收购速汇金(MoneyGram)的交易，专家表示这是可以理解的，因为这家美国支付公司拥有包括政府雇员和美国士兵在内的数百万美国人的敏感个人信息。但CFIUS去年11月份出手干预，要求德国Biotest出售旗下美国业务，之后才会批准一家中国投资者对这家血浆产品生产商的收购，这引发了一部分人的困惑。

“It’s not clear what the national security angle is there,” says a Cfius lawyer. “We’re talking about blood plasma!”

“目前尚不清楚这起案件中的国家安全角度是什么，”一名专做CFIUS案子的律师说，“我们谈论的是血浆！”

Other high-profile transactions have run into trouble. HNA’s takeover of SkyBridge Capital, whose founder Anthony Scaramucci was Mr Trump’s White House communications director, has stalled before Cfius on questions over the conglomerate’s murky ownership structure and rumours of possible links to Beijing. China’s Hubei Xinyan Equity Investment Partnership last week was also forced to abandon its $580m bid to buy Xcerra, a US semiconductor testing equipment maker, after Cfius made its opposition clear to the companies.

其他一些备受瞩目的交易也遭遇了麻烦。海航集团(HNA)收购美国天桥资本(SkyBridge Capital)的交易在CFIUS面前也陷入了停滞，原因是对该企业集团模糊的所有权结构的质疑以及可能与北京方面存在联系的传言。天桥资本创始人安东尼?斯卡拉穆奇(Anthony Scaramucci)曾担任特朗普白宫的通讯联络主管。上周，在CFIUS明确表示反对后，中国的湖北鑫炎股权投资合伙企业(Hubei Xinyan Equity Investment Partnership)也被迫放弃以5.8亿美元收购美国半导体测试设备制造商Xcerra。

Some of the proposed reforms are meant to streamline the process.

一些拟议中的改革旨在简化审查流程。

An initial 30-day review would be extended to 45 days under Mr Cornyn’s bill. That, people close to Cfius say, would give intelligence agencies more time to review cases. It also would help discharge more cases before triggering a secondary 45-day investigation stage that Cfius has often employed.

根据科宁提出的法案，起初的30天审查期将延长至45天。接近CFIUS的人士表示，这将给情报机构更多时间来审查案件。这也将有助于在触发CFIUS通常采用的为期45天的第二调查阶段之前，将更多案件排除掉。

Opponents of the bill are also concerned it would turn a voluntary process into one mandating notification of Cfius. The move is meant to give the committee wider power including over many smaller transactions that involve minority stakes in tiny start-ups. That would mean potentially thousands more cases on its docket. It could also put a chill on the angel investments that fuel innovation in hubs such as Silicon Valley, they argue.

反对该法案的人士还担心，该法案将把一个自愿过程变成CFIUS的一个强制要求。此举旨在赋予该委员会更广泛的权力，包括涉及小型初创企业少数股权的许多较小的交易。这意味着可能有数千宗更多案件等待该委员会处理。他们认为，CFIUS还可能使推动硅谷等科技中心创新的天使投资降温。

“Capital is mobile. Talent is mobile. If the regulatory burdens are too much people will take their talents and their capital elsewhere,” says Mr Hunter.

“资本是流动的。人才是流动的。如果监管压力太大，人才和资本就会转移到别处。”罗德?亨特说。

Critics argue that the Trump administration, which has put deregulation at the centre of its agenda, and the bill’s backers in Congress are underestimating the bureaucratic monster they are creating. Treasury officials insist they do not want to do that, but former officials are sceptical. “The current system can barely handle the 240 cases that it has now and we are looking at an expansion of scope of hundreds or thousands of additional cases,” says Kevin Wolf, who represented the commerce department on Cfius during the Obama administration.

批评人士称，将放松管制作为议程核心的特朗普政府以及该法案在国会的支持者，低估了他们制造的“官僚怪兽”。财政部官员坚称，他们不想这么做，但前政府官员对此表示怀疑。奥巴马政府期间在CFIUS代表美国商务部的凯文?沃尔夫(Kevin Wolf)表示：“当前的系统几乎无法处理现有的240起案件，而摆在我们眼前的是审查范围要扩大到新增数百或数千起案件。”

“That’s going to need a very large organisation of people and new people at agencies that don’t yet exist,” he adds. “It’s going to create an extraordinary bureaucracy.”

“这将需要一个非常庞大的人员组织，还需要在各机构招纳新人，”他补充道，“这将制造一个极为巨大的官僚机构。”

SIDE BAR: US takes aim at China over IP

美国在知识产权领域瞄准中国

If Beijing’s alleged manipulation of the renminbi once drew the greatest ire from Washington, these days the dominant obsession is control of technology. In a world where the biggest geopolitical question has become how to manage a developing clash between a rising China and a divided America, the market for “foundational” technologies such as artificial intelligence is becoming a key battleground. Call it the innovation war.

如果说中国政府据称操纵人民币汇率的行为曾招致华盛顿方面极大的怒火，那如今华盛顿最执着针对的是技术控制。在当今世界，最大的地缘政治问题已变成如何管理崛起的中国与分裂的美国之间不断发展的冲突，人工智能等“基础”技术市场正在成为关键战场。我们可以称之为创新战争。

In its recently released National Security Strategy the Trump administration labelled protecting the “national security innovation base” a priority. “The genius of creative Americans, and the free system that enables them, is critical to American security and prosperity,” it said.

在最近公布的《国家安全战略》(National Security Strategy)中，特朗普政府将保护“国家安全创新基础”列为了优先事项。该战略称：“富有创造力的美国人的天赋、以及成就他们的自由体制，对美国的安全和繁荣至关重要。”

The administration wants to crack down on what it sees as a plethora of legal ways that make it too easy for China and other strategic rivals to acquire important technologies.

特朗普政府认为太多合法途径使中国等战略竞争对手很容易获得重要技术，它要打击这些途径。

Backing a strengthening of Committee on Foreign Investment in the US is one way the administration is doing that. In a report last year, a venture capital arm of the Pentagon, which invests in tech start-ups doing work with potential military uses, recommended that the US use Cfius to cut off the flow of foreign investment into early-stage tech companies and look at outbound investments as well.

支持强化CFIUS正是美国政府的一种打击方式。在去年的一份报告中，五角大楼的一个风险投资部门（投资产品具有潜在军事用途的科技初创企业）建议，美国利用CFIUS切断外国投资流入处于早期阶段的科技公司，同时审查对外投资。

The White House has made an attack on Beijing’s intellectual property regime the centrepiece of its approach towards China. It launched an investigation last summer into intellectual property theft and Chinese policies that pressure companies to transfer technology in return for market access. That probe could prepare the ground for new tariffs and measures to curtail Chinese investment in US sectors in which Beijing will not allow reciprocal investments.

白宫已将对北京方面的知识产权制度的攻击作为其对华政策的中心部分。去年夏天，白宫发起了一项针对知识产权盗窃和中国施压企业转让技术以换取市场准入的政策的调查。这一调查可能为征收新关税和出台措施限制中国在美国一些领域投资铺平道路（因为对于这些领域，中国不允许美国进行互惠投资）。