【英语国际】美国玻璃城 中国玻璃造

The Toledo Museum of Art's $30 million Glass Pavilion is a symbol of America's 'Glass City,' and reflects the legacy of its local glassmakers.

A smudge on the image: The pavilion glass was imported from China, the new global powerhouse of the glass industry.

No one in the U.S. had the capability to satisfy cutting-edge architectural specifications for the curving pavilion, even though the 2006 job involved techniques advanced decades ago by Toledo inventors: bending and laminating glass. The pavilion features 360 thick glass panels, each up to 13.5 feet tall, eight feet wide and weighing over 1,300 pounds.

For years, the West focused on the threat from China's low-tech exporters like clothing and furniture makers. Glass represents how an even more potent challenge has arrived: sophisticated, capital-intensive businesses that boast high-tech expertise.

In industries where global demand has shifted to China, the pattern is repeated, from steel to locomotives and turbines to specialized glassworks. Chinese companies that have gorged on growth in the domestic market have managed in just a few years to close the gap on decades of technological innovation in the industrialized West.

Shenzhen, China-based Avic Sanxin Co. got the Toledo Glass Pavilion job because of its willingness to invest in technology necessary for complex glass, including a $500,000 piece of equipment, says deputy general manager Bruce Tsin, who wears jeans and reads architectural magazines in English. U.S. companies, he says, are too cautious, preferring standardized processes and 'easy money.'

But China also has secured important technology from foreign glassmakers eager for a foothold in the world's biggest market. Foreign companies often play a balancing act in China, trying to protect selected manufacturing secrets and products.

Owens-Illinois Inc., an Ohio bottle-maker, intends to pump possibly hundreds of millions of dollars into Chinese acquisitions and joint ventures in the coming years. 'It's the biggest glass market in the world and we feel underrepresented,' says L. Richard Crawford, president of global glass operations. 'What we bring the market is know-how.'

Yet each deal will require approvals from Chinese authorities who have a reputation for pressuring foreign investors to introduce their latest proprietary technology, but a weak track record for protecting it.

Owens-Illinois says it will hold back key trade secrets locked in its suburban Toledo labs, like how to make jet black glass and 30% lighter wine bottles. Mr. Crawford says his company can succeed in China by introducing 'the basic stuff.'

Japan's Nippon Sheet Glass Co. this month said it would issue over $570 million in new shares in part to fund $53 million in planned spending on production lines that make energy-saving glass in the northern city Tianjin. Apple Inc.'s first Shanghai store opened in July featuring a tubular dome of glass panels 41 feet tall, all of it China made.

Northwest Ohio was aggressive about luring the glass industry in its early days, too. In the late 1880s, the area convinced East Coast glassmakers like Edward Drummond Libbey to relocate with cheap natural gas, cheap land and cheap labor-including workers as young as eight years old. Washington blocked European glass with tariffs. By 1900, the Toledo area had around 100 glassmakers. Mr. Libbey, who died in 1925, endowed the Toledo Museum of Art.

'China is the America of the 1880s, 1890s,' says Quentin R. Skrabec Jr., an industrial historian at Ohio's University of Findlay. 'Pittsburgh was the steel; Akron was the rubber; Toledo was the glass city.'

Ohio companies like Owens-Illinois, Libbey-Owens-Ford Co., Owens Corning and Libbey Inc. automated production of light bulbs, bottles and flat glass, supplied the Empire State Building with windows and commercialized fiberglass.

For decades, a major focus of Toledo was supplying glass to the rapidly expanding car industry of nearby Detroit. In the 1920s, the predecessor company to Libbey-Owens-Ford helped perfect the process of lamination to make windshields that didn't shatter into pieces. As the U.S. auto makers lost share in the 1980s to Japanese car makers, Toledo's glassmakers felt the pain.

Most of the world's flat glass comes from float lines, a tricky energy-intensive process in which molten glass flattens above a bed of hot tin and then is conveyed hundreds of feet in an unbroken ribbon while it cools. Float plants typically run 24 hours a day for years at a time.

There are 33 float lines in the U.S., according to Glass Magazine. Toledo has two of them, run by Nippon Sheet's Pilkington unit.

China has at least 150 float lines today. As recently as the early 1970s, the country was a tiny player in the glass industry. But the rapid growth in the Chinese construction and automotive industries since then has created surging demand for local glass.

The basic ingredients in glass, including silica sand and soda ash, are found almost everywhere. Because glass is heavy and difficult to transport, it is typically produced close to where it is used. China makes 45% of the world's glass, but it consumes virtually all of that amount. Every 15 minutes, its production is enough to clad a 100-story skyscraper.

Crowding a single Chinese city, Shahe, are 44 float lines. The Hebei Province city, 265 miles southwest of Beijing, makes around a fifth of the nation's flat glass.

In Shahe, Liu Jujun, owner of Hebei DaGuangMing Industry Group Co., recently inaugurated an 820-foot-long float glass line-adjacent to an identical one he opened last July.

'Whenever I go to other parts of the country, I see new buildings being built,' says Mr. Liu, who is also a Shahe government adviser. 'The more glass here, the more easily we can sell glass.'

China's 'Glass City' features a skyline of concrete cooling towers characteristic of nuclear power plants, not the expensive equipment Western glassmakers use to reduce pollutants like nitrogen oxide. Mr. Liu says 10% of his capital expenditure goes into pollution controls, that he meets all national standards and is switching to cleaner natural gas.

But Mr. Liu's plant features construction that looks slapdash by Western standards. It is run by engineers seated on wooden benches. A nearby silica sand producer spits mucky water onto the parched land. And trucks ply Shahe roads loaded with bags of synthetic soda ash, the product of a chemical process environmentalists forced out of the U.S. in 1985.

Most of China's glass output is such low quality, it has no market other than China. And much of the Chinese glass now hitting U.S. shores is chiseling into market extremities where profit margins are thinnest: the cheapest salt shakers, table tops and replacement windshields.

But China also is beginning to supply more sophisticated glass. Blast-resistant lower-floor windows for New York's One World Trade Center building under construction will come from northeast China's Shandong Jin Jing Technology Co. The U.S. company that is fabricating glass for the upper floors says it didn't have ability to make the large windows, which are nearly an inch thick and have V-shaped ridges in them.

'We try to hit the sweet spots in terms of volumes,' explains Don McCann, architectural design manager at Viracon Inc. in Owatonna, Minn. 'Our business model is geared toward the common sizes.'

It was a similar story for the Toledo Museum of Art. Only a Chinese company and Spanish and Italian companies could produce the oversize curving panels needed for the futuristic design of its Glass Pavilion. Sanxin says it was paid under $1 million; people involved in the project said it would have cost up to 50% more in Europe.

'We did get some grief about the fabrication until we explained we didn't have a choice,' says Carol Bintz, an officer of the Toledo Museum of Art who led the project. 'We couldn't find anyone in the United States that could do both the size and make the curvature.'

To win prestige work, Sanxin spends money. For the Toledo museum, it put $500,000 into the world's largest 'autoclave,' a giant blue cylinder that works like a pressure cooker to stick, or laminate, glass plates together.

'We were also quite proud to supply glass to a project like this,' said Mr. Tsin, the general manager. 'We believed after this project we had a chance to do similar things [elsewhere].'

Not everything went smoothly for Sanxin in Toledo. At least one piece of glass arrived broken, and replacement glass had to be air-freighted to Toledo at high cost.

Still, the Toledo museum job helped win Sanxin recognition as one of the few companies anywhere able to take on certain highly specialized jobs involving curving or manipulating glass. It has worked on glass for a Paris airport, an Austrian subway, Tokyo storefronts and is supplying a museum in Anchorage, Alaska.

It has purchased equipment in hopes of fabricating glass for Apple's China expansion, but concedes it hasn't yet met the client's quality specifications.

Sanxin was founded as a private company in the 1990s and was listed on the Shenzen Stock Exchange. Its biggest shareholder is Aviation Industry Corp. of China, a government-owned company that is a leading plane maker and military contractor. Among its biggest contracts in recent years have been Beijing and Shanghai airports.

Mr. Tsin rejects the notion that Sanxin has an unfair advantage because of its government links. Instead, he says Sanxin has developed a niche business in architectural glass because the world's established glassmakers want stable, high-volume production, not the risks of one-off jobs like the Toledo Museum of Art.

Toledo glass fabricators, machinists, artisans and retailers understand that China is reordering the glass industry. 'It hasn't really been felt yet except in isolated instances,' says Paul Pellioni, vice president of Toledo Mirror & Glass Co., a major installer who worked on the museum. 'It would be naive to say it's not a factor. It's going to be a factor.'

But Toledo's main problem remains the big drop in Big Three auto sales. Toledo's glass industry currently employs just 2,500 workers. That is down from nearly 10,000 workers in 1973, according to Moody's Economy.com.

No one at the Source, a crowded Toledo job bank and training center, sees the glass industry as an elixir for 11%-plus joblessness. 'Manufacturing is fizzling out here,' says Ken Nutter, a laid-off 54-year-old who worked as a glass cutter in the 1970s but not since.

When President Barack Obama last September bowed to union demands to levy tariffs on China-made tires, and later on steel pipe, he stirred hope in the U.S. glass industry, and its labor unions, that their sector might also get relief. It hasn't happened so far.

Last October, eight Democratic U.S. senators wrote to the Obama Administration asking it to challenge 'Chinese subsidization' of its glass sector. Separately, lawyers say a movement is building for a World Trade Organization case that would challenge Beijing to prove that production surges in sectors including glassmaking are commercially oriented, not government policy.

China's Ministry of Commerce warns any action to restrict its glass industry would backfire. Any U.S. glass industry woes, the ministry said in a statement, reflect weak domestic economic conditions.

For U.S. glass companies willing to deploy technology, the ministry added, China is 'a rare opportunity and wide market to explore.'

Near the Pilkington plant on Dixie Highway outside Toledo, patrons at 'Moe's Place' refer to 'Glass City' in the past tense. 'We used to be a glass capital,' they say, pointing to boarded-up houses. The plant, which makes windshields for farm equipment and big-rig trucks, now employs 300.

Next door to the plant, bulldozers are readying Toledo's post-glass gambit: 'Hollywood Casino.' Designed with an Art Deco facade of concrete on a spot where glass was first made in 1898, it promises 3,200 construction and casino jobs, or 260 more than the glassmaking plant had in 1970.

雷多艺术博物馆(Toledo Museum of Art)造价3,000万美元的“玻璃馆”(Glass Pavilion)是这个美国“玻璃城”的象征，并映照着当地玻璃制造者留下的遗产。

但不太和谐的是，馆舍所用玻璃进口自中国这个新的玻璃工业全球重镇。

整个美国没有哪家公司有能力满足这座流线型馆舍的尖端建筑规格，尽管这项2006年发包的工程所使用的玻璃热弯和层压技术正是数十年前托雷多本地人发明的。馆舍拥有360块厚玻璃板，每块最高达13.5英尺、宽八英尺、重逾1,300磅。

多年以来，西方关注的都是中国服装和家具生产商等低技术出口企业所造成的威胁。而玻璃行业所发生的情况，让人看到一种更强大的挑战已经到来。这就是拥有高技术专业能力的尖端、资本密集型企业。

在全球需求的重心已向中国转移的行业，如钢铁、机车，如涡轮机、特种玻璃，这种现象屡见不鲜。那些从国内市场的增长中充分获利的中资企业，数年之间就弥补了西方工业化国家数十年的技术创新所拉开的差距。

接下托雷多“玻璃馆”项目的是总部位于中国深圳的中航三鑫(Avic Sanxin Co.)，穿牛仔裤、读英文建筑杂志的副总经理Bruce Tsin说，拿到这个项目的原因在于公司愿意投入资金开发复杂玻璃所需要的技术，比如有一种设备一件就价值50万美元。他说，美国公司过于谨慎，它们更愿意走标准化流程，更想赚快活钱。

而中国也从急于进入世界最大市场的外国玻璃生产商那里获得了重要的技术。外资企业在中国力图保护部分生产机密和产品，常常要进行平衡。

总部位于俄亥俄州的瓶具生产商Owens-Illinois Inc.有意在未来几年投资可能达数亿美元的资金，在中国收购公司或组建合资公司。分管全球玻璃部门的总裁克劳福德(L. Richard Crawford)说，中国是世界上最大的玻璃市场，我们觉得自己在那里的存在程度还不够；我们给中国市场带去的是专业技术。

但每笔并购交易都需要得到中国政府的批准，而众所周知的是，中国政府常常向外国投资者施压，要求它们引进最新的专有技术，而在保护专有技术方面却一直不力。

Owens-Illinois公司说，它将保留托雷多郊区实验室里关键的商业机密，比如怎样生产黑玻璃，怎样让酒瓶轻30%。克劳福德说，公司采用“基本的东西”就可以在中国取得成功。

日本板硝子公司(Nippon Sheet Glass Co.)本月说，它将发行逾5.7亿美元的新股，部分目的是为计划中的天津节能玻璃生产线支出筹资5,300万美元。苹果公司(Apple Inc.)在上海的第一家门店7月份开张，有一个由高41英尺的玻璃板搭成的管状造型，这些玻璃全为中国制造。

在玻璃工业的早期发展阶段，俄亥俄西北地区大力吸引投资。在19世纪80年代末，该地区以低廉的天然气、土地和劳动力价格（其中包括小至八岁的童工），说服艾德华•德拉蒙德•利贝(Edward Drummond Libbey)等东海岸地区的玻璃生产商搬迁到本地。美国政府通过关税封杀了欧洲的玻璃。到1900年，托雷多地区约有100家玻璃生产商。1925年逝世的利贝出资成立了托雷多艺术博物馆。

俄亥俄芬德雷大学(University of Findlay)工业史学家斯克雷贝克(Quentin R. Skrabec Jr.)说，中国就是19世纪八九十年代的美国；当时匹兹堡是钢铁城，阿克伦是橡胶城，托雷多是玻璃城。

Owens-Illinois、Libbey-Owens-Ford Co.、Owens Corning 和利贝的Libbey Inc.等俄亥俄公司实现了灯泡、瓶子和平板玻璃的生产自动化，并为纽约帝国大厦(Empire State Building)供应了窗户和商品化的玻璃纤维。

几十年来，托雷多的主要生意是向附近的底特律快速发展的汽车工业提供玻璃。上世纪20年代，利比－欧文斯－福特公司（Libbey-Owens-Ford）的前身公司完善了层压工艺，使汽车档风玻璃不致被粉碎。随着上世纪80年代美国汽车制造企业的市场份额输给了日本汽车制造厂，托雷多的玻璃制造企业也受到牵连，处境困难。

世界多数平板玻璃来自浮法生产线，这是一种复杂的能源密集型工艺，熔化的玻璃液在热锡槽上变平，在冷却的同时不间断地传送出数百英尺计的玻璃。浮法玻璃厂的机器通常一连数年24小时不间断地运行。

根据《玻璃杂志》(Glass Magazine)数据，美国有33条浮法生产线，托雷多拥有两条，由日本板硝子株式会社旗下的皮尔金顿分公司运营。

目前中国至少有150条浮法玻璃生产线。上世纪70年代，中国在玻璃行业里规模尚小，但中国建筑业和汽车业快速发展，自那以来市场对本土玻璃的需求猛增。

玻璃的基本成分包括硅砂和苏打灰，它们几乎随处可见。由于玻璃很沉、不易运输，通常生产地接近销售市场。中国玻璃产量占全球的45%，但其消费量几乎也是这个数。每15分钟，中国生产的玻璃足够一栋100层的大楼使用。

仅在河北省沙河市一个城市，就有44条浮法玻璃生产线。沙河市的平板玻璃产量约占中国总产量的五分之一。沙河市位于北京西南265英里处。

河北大光明实业集团董事长刘聚军近期推出了820英尺长的浮法玻璃生产线，与去年7月开工的那条相同的生产线相距不远。

刘聚军说，每次我到全国各地出差，都会看到崭新的建筑拔地而起，我们这里生产的玻璃越多，就卖得越好。刘聚军是沙河市政协委员。

中国的“玻璃城”拥有像核电站那样的一座座混凝土冷却塔，而不是西方玻璃生产企业用来减少一氧化氮等污染物的昂贵设备。刘聚军说，他10%的资本支出用于治理污染，已达到国家所有标准，目前正在转而使用更清洁的天然气能源。

但刘聚军的工厂建筑以西方标准来看有点草率马虎。它由坐在木凳上的工程师来运行。附近硅砂厂流出的脏水溢到炙热的地面上。行驶在沙河道路上的卡车装载着一袋袋的合成苏打灰，这是环境保护主义者迫使美国从1985年起禁止使用的一种化工产品。

中国玻璃多数质量较差，除了中国以外没有其他市场。现在进入美国的大量中国玻璃制品都处于利润率最低的极小市场，包括最便宜的盐瓶、桌面和可替换的挡风玻璃。

但中国也开始供应工艺更复杂的玻璃。纽约世界贸易中心一期（One World Trade Center）正在建设中，其所用的防爆低层窗户玻璃将来自中国山东金晶科技股份有限公司，正在生产高层玻璃的美国公司表示，它没有能力生产大型窗户，这些玻璃厚度接近一英寸，而且要有V型边沿。

明尼苏达州Viracon Inc.建筑设计经理麦卡恩（Don McCann）解释说，在数量上来说，我们努力达到最佳的点。我们的商业模式是生产普通尺寸的窗户玻璃。

对于托雷多艺术博物馆来说，也是差不多的情况。只有一家中国企业、以及西班牙和意大利的企业可以生产这种超大尺寸、用于其玻璃馆未来主义的弧形窗框。中航三鑫表示，其获得的收入不到100万美元，参与这项工程的人说，如果把工程包给欧洲企业，成本最多要增加50%。

托雷多艺术博物馆的一位高管宾兹（Carol Bintz）说，我们确实在玻璃方面遇到一些挫折，直到我们说解释我们没有选择。我们在美国找不到任何一家可以实现这种尺寸和弯度的生产企业。

为揽到好工程，中航三鑫不怕花钱。针对托雷多的这家博物馆，它投入50万美元建成了世界上最大的“高压锅”，也就是一台巨大的蓝色汽缸，像高压锅一样把玻璃板粘合在一起。

Bruce Tsin说，能为这样一个项目供应玻璃，我们也感到相当骄傲；我们相信，这个项目完成后，我们有机会在其他地方做类似的事情。

中航三鑫在托雷多也不是一帆风顺。至少有一块玻璃在运抵时已经破碎，用于替换的玻璃不得不高价空运到托雷多。

但托雷多艺术博物馆的这个项目帮助中航三鑫获得了认可，在人们眼中，它是全球少数几家能够承担某些涉及玻璃弯折与塑型、高度专业化任务的公司之一。它曾做过巴黎机场、奥地利地铁、东京店面的玻璃项目，目前是美国阿拉斯加州Anchorage一座博物馆的供应商。

中航三鑫还购买设备，希望为苹果公司在中国的扩张做玻璃方面的项目，但它承认，目前还没有达到客户的质量规格。

中航三鑫90年代作为民营公司创办，后来在深交所挂牌上市。最大股东是国有企业中国航空工业集团公司(Aviation Industry Corp. of China)，这是一家重要的飞机制造商和军事承包商，近几年接到的最大合同包括北京和上海的机场项目。

有人认为中航三鑫有政府关系，具有一种不公平的竞争优势，对此Bruce Tsin予以否认。他说，中航三鑫在建筑玻璃市场开发出的是一个小众市场，其原因在于世界老牌玻璃生产商希望稳定批量生产，而不愿意承担托雷多艺术博物馆这类一次性项目存在的风险。

托雷多的玻璃制造商、机工、技工和零售商都明白，中国正在重整整个玻璃工业的秩序。Toledo Mirror & Glass Co.是一家大型安装公司，曾参与托雷多艺术博物馆的建设，其副总裁派利欧尼(Paul Pellioni)说，除了在个别情形当中以外，这一点其实还没有被感觉到；但说它不是一个因素那就幼稚了，它会成为一个因素的。

但美国汽车业三巨头汽车销量的大幅下降，仍然是托雷多面临的主要问题。托雷多玻璃行业目前仅雇有2,500名工人。而据穆迪氏经济网(Moody's Economy.com)数据，1973年此地玻璃行业雇用的工人接近10,000名。

托雷多职介与培训中心“Source”人潮涌动，没有人认为玻璃行业会是解决11%以上失业率的灵丹妙药。54岁的失业工人纳特(Ken Nutter)说，这里的制造业快完了。纳特在70年代当过玻璃切割工，但后来就再也没有从事过这个职业。

美国总统奥巴马(Barack Obama)去年9月份屈从于工会的要求，向中国制造的轮胎征收惩罚性关税，后来又对中国制造的钢管征税。此举燃起了美国玻璃工业及其工会的希望，认为他们所在的行业也可以轻松起来。到目前为止，这种希望还没有实现。

去年10月，美国八位民主党参议员致信奥巴马政府，要求它采取措施反击中国对其玻璃行业的“补贴”。在另一场合，国会议员说，一场在世界贸易组织(World Trade Organization)框架内打官司的运动正在蓄积力量，将迫使北京证明玻璃制造等行业产量的飙升是商业性的，而不是政府的政策。

中国商务部警告，如果采取措施遏制中国玻璃工业，则将引起负面后果。商务部发表声明说，如果说美国玻璃工业存在危机的话，那也是美国国内经济环境疲软的反映。

商务部还说，对于那些愿意把技术用于生产中的美国玻璃公司来说，中国是一个难得的机会和广阔的市场。

在托雷多郊区南方高速(Dixie Highway)路边的皮尔金顿工厂附近，“Moe's Place”店内的顾客是以过去时态来说“玻璃城”这个词的。他们指着一座座用木板封闭的房子说，我们曾是玻璃之都。皮尔金顿工厂生产农用机械和半拖挂车用的挡风玻璃，目前雇有员工300人。

工厂隔壁，一台台推土机正在为托雷多后玻璃时代的新开局做准备。这个新的开局就是“好莱坞赌城”(Hollywood Casino)，它拥有“Art Deco”风格的混凝土立面，所处的位置正是1898年玻璃第一次被造出来的地方。预计赌城会带来3,200个建筑与博彩岗位，比1970年那座玻璃厂提供的岗位多出260个。