FT社评：英国亟需升级外资规则

Britain’s greatest economic strength is the ingenuity of its people. With world-class universities, a distinguished history of technological innovation and a global reputation for inventive design, Britain is justifiably proud of its creative firepower. Trinity College, Cambridge has produced nine-times as many Nobel-winning scientists as China.

英国最大的经济优势是英国人民的聪明才智。拥有世界一流的大学、辉煌的科技创新史以及享誉全球的创新设计，英国完全有理由为自身的创造性火力感到自豪。剑桥三一学院(Trinity College, Cambridge)培养的获得诺贝尔奖的科学家是中国培养的9倍。

But Britain’s intellectual vibrancy has been matched by its appalling record of commercialising inventions. Various government reports have examined why the country has been so bad at building global businesses off the back of its technological breakthroughs. Traditional culprits range from managerial incompetence to an overly short-term perspective to a lack of scale-up finance.

但与英国人智力上的活跃极不相配的，是将发明商业化的极差记录。各种各样的政府报告研究了为什么英国在利用本国技术突破打造全球企业方面表现得如此糟糕。传统的解释很多——从管理无能、过于短视到缺乏规模融资。

Another factor, though, has played a part: many of Britain’s promising technology companies have gone into the maw of foreign buyers. Imagination Technologies, laid low by the cancellation of its contract with Apple, is just the latest, after agreeing a deal with the Chinese-backed Canyon Bridge.

不过，还有一个因素也起到了一定作用：英国许多有前途的科技公司已被外国买家收入囊中。因苹果公司(Apple)取消合同而遭受打击的Imagination Technologies正是最新一例，该公司已与中资背景的Canyon Bridge达成收购协议。

At a time when the government is trying to chart a new industrial course for a post-Brexit world, it is worth reconsidering the structures of the country’s investment regime. The first principle to reaffirm is that Britain remains open for business and warmly welcomes foreign investment, including takeovers. Foreign investors have injected much-needed managerial expertise and long-term finance into the country’s economy. To take just one example, the British car industry, for so long the joke of the industrialised world, has been revived over the past two decades, largely thanks to Japanese, German, and Indian investment.

在政府设法为后退欧时代绘制新的产业路线之际，有必要反思本国投资机制的结构。第一项要重申的原则是，英国仍保持对商业开放，并热情欢迎包括收购在内的外国投资。外国投资者为英国经济注入了其迫切需要的管理经验和长期融资。仅举一例：长期以来一直为工业化国家笑柄的英国汽车业，过去20年重现生机，这很大程度上归功于来自日本、德国和印度的投资。

But there is a case for additional scrutiny in two particular areas. The first focuses on the high-tech sector. There is a difference between the world of atoms and the world of bits. There will always be a case for manufacturers to build plants close to consumers and put down roots in the local economy. Intellectual property, on the other hand, can disappear in the click of a mouse.

但在两个特定领域，有理由进行额外的审查。第一个是高科技行业。原子世界与比特世界不一样。制造商在离消费者近的地方建设工厂、扎根于当地经济总是合理的。而另一方面，点一次鼠标就可以让知识产权不复存在。

To many, it has been dismaying to see all of the “Cambridge Cluster” of tech companies being snapped up by foreign buyers. The government has been right to highlight robotics and artificial intelligence as strategic economic priorities. It would be a shame if Britain became no more than a nursery for foreign acquirers in these fields. Requiring assurances from acquirers of British companies that the work of generating intellectual property will remain in Britain amounts to protecting a national asset.

看到“剑桥产业集群”(Cambridge Cluster)所有科技公司都被外国买家吞噬一空，令很多人感到沮丧。英国政府强调把机器人和人工智能作为战略经济优先没有错。如果英国仅仅变成外国收购者在这些领域的“苗圃”，那将是一种耻辱。要求收购者保证将打造知识产权的工作留在英国就相当于保护一项国家资产。

The second area of scrutiny concerns purchases by companies that are effectively state controlled or funded. It would be naive to regard Chinese companies, in particular, as private enterprises in the western sense. China is mercantilist power which uses its corporations for national strategic ends. Often — as in the case of Huawei and HNA, both energetic acquirers — the ownership and funding structures of many Chinese companies are opaque.

第二个应审查的领域涉及那些实际上由国家控制或出资的公司进行的收购。尤其是，将中国企业视为西方意义上的私营企业是幼稚的。作为一个重商主义大国，中国一直在利用本国企业为国家的战略目标服务。通常情况下——正如收购意愿强烈的华为(Huawei)和海航(HNA)显示出的——许多中国企业的所有权和融资结构都不透明。

One solution would be for the UK to create an inter-agency investment body, similar to the Committee for Foreign Investment in the United States, to review foreign investments on the grounds of national security and economic strategy. Cfius has provided a useful additional layer of scrutiny, even if it has rarely blocked takeovers in practice.

一个解决方案是，英国可以创建一个类似美国外国投资委员会(CFIUS)的跨部门投资机构，根据国家安全和经济战略审查外国投资。CFIUS提供了额外一层有用的审查，即便该机构很少在实践中阻止收购。

Any investment review process can be perverted into a tool for protectionist politicians. A British Cfius would require a tight mandate and close supervision. Even if the Cfius model doesn’t fit Britain, the country needs a more coherent approach to takeovers.

任何投资审查过程都可能被扭曲为信奉保护主义的政客的工具。英国的外国投资委员会将需要严格的授权和密切的监督。即使CFIUS模式不适合英国，英国也需要在应对外资收购方面拿出更协调一致的策略。