7 ]% g# b0 s+ `5 ~, {/ d* pWhether Tata Steel's shareholders should be overjoyed by its £6.7bn (�0.3bn) takeover of Corus, the Anglo-Dutch steelmaker, is a matter for debate. But there is nothing ambiguous about the public jubilation the deal has provoked in India, where it is being hailed as evidence that the country is acquiring its rightful status as a global economic heavyweight.4 T& y! w' X% f; l) ~8 R7 H
0 C6 ?$ v/ V9 I9 X0 rThere is more than a touch of hubris to all the exuberance, abetted by the giddy rise of a national economy and a stock market that show suspicious signs of overheating. Objectively, India is still making its way in the world. Though growing fast, it is still no more than a welterweight, with output only a third of China's and exports and two-way foreign direct investment flows lower than Austria's.4 j7 g. `$ Q# x7 o. V$ v
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Nonetheless, the deal is a milestone – but as much because it promises to deepen the world's impact on India as the other way round. As other companies follow Tata down the foreign acquisition trail, which they surely will, their growing stake in an open global economy will give them a strong incentive to press for a more open Indian one. The reason is pure self-interest: you can be far less sure of a welcome in other countries' markets if your own remains closed – especially if foreigners regard you as a serious competitive threat. Rightly or wrongly, reciprocity matters. That is good news for India, which needs inflows of foreign capital and know-how as badly as its companies need global scale. 1 |! u/ k( D& p2 O) G5 P7 t9 Y
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It would be comforting to report that the same logic ruled in the rest of Asia. However, while India moves gradually and belatedly to lower inward investment barriers, pressures to move in the opposite direction are surfacing elsewhere. - @) ~) c f: O( Z" Z+ C; F/ pThailand's military junta is tightening foreign ownership restrictions. In China, a tougher line on foreign investment approvals has been followed by an edict that companies in “strategic” sectors, many with market monopolies, will remain firmly in state hands. In South Korea, foreign investors who re-built local businesses shattered by the 1997 economic crisis are demonised for making a profit from it. In Japan, the business establishment is fighting plans that could make it slightly less difficult for foreign companies to mount takeovers there.( i% D) d% y2 I! V# h( b
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Normally, protectionism flourishes when economies are doing badly. But today, much of Asia is booming. The region is not simply responding, either, to western displays of economic nationalism, such as the US Congress's veto of the bid for Unocal by CNOOC, the Chinese oil company, and Europe's chauvinistic response to Mittal Steel's – ultimately successful – takeover of Arcelor.5 S v3 x* u! x5 |8 e6 n
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Intra-Asian investors are also feeling the heat, as Thailand's crackdown shows. It was triggered by a popular outcry at the sale of the family business empire of Thaksin Shinawatra, the deposed prime minister, to Temasek, Singapore's state investment company. That other foreign investors have been caught up in the backwash appears to be due less to rampant xenophobia than to administrative incompetence./ s8 b$ w& D4 o# r
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But Thailand's peculiar politics also make it a special case. Elsewhere, there appear to be two main explanations for the more protectionist mood. The first is the extraordinary speed at which many long-sheltered Asian economies have opened up to the world in the past decade: in China, by political choice, in Japan and Korea as a result of economic crisis. After absorbing so many violent upheavals, indigestion seems to have set in.$ q& m. N: E% J+ w5 T. \
8 M1 X8 _+ E% g0 B, M6 RThe second, more worrying, reason is that, in all three of Asia's biggest economies, the political drive for market-oriented reform is flagging. China's current top leaders are less committed than their predecessors to bold liberalisation, which is also increasingly contested from within and outside the Communist party. In Japan, Shinzo Abe's new government is fast losing political authority, while Roh Moo-hyun, Korea's outgoing president, has never really tried. - [. c2 ?# L6 @& v R. M) F0 d( w: U% y, @/ ^* |* U6 E
The danger of this hiatus is that it could lead to a downward spiral of discrimination in favour of local producer interests that would use their privileged position to argue for still greater protection. The risk is particularly strong in a region where cronyism between government and business is rife and where political connections count unusually heavily in commercial success. , J" P+ Q3 x# d4 B7 \3 r# R p( Y5 b 1 w6 n; N- g8 I+ D* X; _7 U `* b& _Will that spiral run out of control? My hunch is no, for three reasons. First, most of Asia depends too much on global trade and investment seriously to jeopardise the prosperity they generate; second, the intensity of intra-Asian competition will continue to favour the play of market forces; and third, developing Asia still needs inward investment to provide vital technology and skills. In some sectors, such as financial services, they are often transferred and diffused more effectively by means of cross-border mergers and acquisitions than through greenfield projects.5 A6 s0 x! x3 k9 m! L5 }( X
c2 {. [& e1 k3 T! z$ xAsia's drive for openness looks more as if it is hitting speed limits than going into reverse. But even if the spread of economic nationalism is contained, its emergence has exposed an introspective mistrust, of near neighbours as much as of the world at large. That is a poor basis on which to build the deeper regional integration of which Asia's politicians dream and from which its economies would clearly benefit. In the end, they stand to lose most from putting narrow national interests first. 3 Q" F' ~% j% \8 j: I* n* S+ I1 Z0 O0 r
[ 本帖最后由 日月光 于 2007-6-30 14:21 编辑 ]
