【英语财经】中美双边投资协议：“WTO 2.0”？ Deal hopes spring from Xi’s torrid summer

When Xi Jinping arrives in Washington this month for his first state visit to the US, the pomp and ceremony alone will have made the trip worth his while. All the Chinese president’s men attach great importance to 21-gun salutes, state dinners and other such symbols.

But for US multinational corporations, which tend to value substance over style, the boiler rooms at the Office of the US Trade Representative and China’s commerce ministry are the site of the really important action. Those mundane settings are where a historic breakthrough in Sino-US commercial relations may be forged — or fall apart — over the coming months.

The bilateral investment treaty, or BIT, being negotiated by the world’s two largest economies has the potential to reshape China’s operating environment for foreign companies, much as the country’s entry into the World Trade Organisation did in 2001. It will also provide the best litmus test of the bold reforms outlined by Mr Xi two years ago, when the ruling Chinese Communist party said that the market should play a “decisive” role in allocating resources.

“The BIT will set the precedent for the next 15 years,” says James Zimmerman, head of the American Chamber of Commerce in China. Many of its provisions will probably be copied and pasted into an even more ambitious “comprehensive agreement on investment” being negotiated by Beijing and the EU.

China’s 2001 WTO accession agreement codified market access rules for foreign companies, such as the 50 per cent foreign ownership ceiling in local automotive joint ventures and the pace at which international banks could expand their branch networks. The agreement was, for its time, revolutionary. The problem with it, from the perspective of foreign investors, is that its provisions have advanced very little since then. Some 14 years on, breakthroughs that were significant at the turn of the century now seem unambitious.

But US multinationals hoping that the BIT will amount to a “WTO 2.0” may need either to temper their expectations or, paradoxically, to hope for a short-term China crisis that could advance their longer-term interests in the country. China’s WTO accession agreement offers an instructive historic parallel. It was negotiated by Zhu Rongji, then premier at a time when his government coveted WTO membership in order to secure China’s emergence as a big global trading power.

While Mr Zhu was no softie, WTO accession provided him with the political cover at home to push through painful but needed reforms at a time when he was confronted with the Asian financial crisis, a bankrupt state banking sector and widespread lay-offs at state-owned enterprises.

“Zhu Rongji used WTO to reshape the domestic economic landscape,” says Joerg Wuttke, head of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China. “He linked the reform efforts within China to accession to the WTO. We thought it would be a bit of déjà vu [with Xi], that this leadership would use the same dynamics in order to force its own market to change. But we haven’t seen this really?.?.?.?Maybe a crisis will inspire the leadership to open up its market more.”

For a brief period in August, China appeared to be on the brink of just such a crisis after its central bank made a badly timed, badly communicated and badly executed adjustment to the renminbi’s daily dollar “reference rate”.

Although most likely intended as technical move designed to boost the renminbi’s credentials as a potential reserve currency, the central bank’s “one-off” devaluation instead led global investors to conclude that Chinese authorities were in a panic over domestic economic conditions.

Considering that this embarrassing stumble happened after Beijing’s expensive, ineffective and since abandoned stock market intervention, Mr Xi has had a very bad summer indeed. The question awaiting the Chinese president in Washington is whether his summer was bad enough — and the Chinese economy fragile enough — to set the wheels in motion for a truly ambitious BIT.

当中国国家主席习近平本月抵达华盛顿首次对美国进行国事访问时，仅盛大的欢迎仪式就将让他不虚此行。习身边的人都特别看重21响礼炮、国宴及其他此类显示接待规格的安排。

但对那些往往更看重实质、而不是形式的美国跨国公司来说，美国贸易代表办公室(Office of the US Trade Representative)以及中国商务部的会议室才是真正重要行动的发生地。未来几个月，就在这些远离聚光灯的地方，中美贸易关系的历史性突破有可能实现（也有可能打水漂）。

世界最大两个经济体正在谈判的双边投资协定(BIT)，有可能像中国2001年加入世界贸易组织(WTO)一样，重塑外国公司在华经营环境。它还将为习近平两年前描绘的大胆改革——执政的中国共产党当时称，市场应在资源配置中发挥“决定性”作用——提供最佳的检验。

中国美国商会(American Chamber of Commerce in China)负责人詹姆斯?齐默尔曼(James Zimmerman)称：“双边投资协定将为未来15年开创先例。”该协议的许多条款很可能会被照搬到北京方面与欧盟正在谈判的一项更加雄心勃勃的“全面投资协定”中。

中国2001年的入世协定规定了外国企业的市场准入规则，例如设定了外资所有权在中国本土汽车合资企业中占比50%的上限以及跨国银行在华扩大分支网络的速度。就当时来看，这项协定是革命性的。但从外国投资者的角度看，它的问题在于其条款自那以后几乎没有什么进步。世纪之交所取得的那些重大突破在14年后的今天看来已经雄心不再。

但那些希望双边投资协定将成为“WTO 2.0”的美国跨国公司或许要么需要降低自己的预期，要么得矛盾地希望中国发生一场可以促进他们长远利益的短期危机。中国的入世协定提供了具有启发性的历史参考。该协定由时任总理朱镕基牵头谈判，彼时的中国政府渴望加入世贸组织，以确保中国崛起为全球贸易强国。

尽管朱镕基绝不是个软蛋，但加入世贸组织当时能在国内为他提供政治上的庇护，让他可以在面对亚洲金融危机、中国国有银行业破产、国企大批员工下岗之际，推动痛苦但必要的改革。

中国欧盟商会主席伍德克(Joerg Wuttke)说：“朱镕基利用世贸组织来重塑国内经济面貌。他将中国国内的改革努力与入世联系了起来。我们以为（习近平的做法）会有点让人似曾相识，以为这届领导班子可能会利用同样的态势，强行推进中国市场改革。但我们其实并未看到这一幕……或许一场危机会激发中国领导人加大开放市场。”

8月份曾有一个短暂的时期，中国似乎处于这样一次危机的边缘，当时中国央行对人民币兑美元每日“参考汇率”进行了一次调整，这次调整在时机、沟通和执行上都很糟糕。

尽管中国央行推出这次“一次性“贬值原本多半是打算将它作为一项技术措施，以提升人民币作为潜在储备货币的资格，然而此举却导致全球投资者认为，中国国内的经济形势让中国政府慌神了。

考虑到在犯下这一尴尬的错误前不久，北京方面还对股市进行过一场昂贵但无效、后来放弃了的干预，习近平这个夏天过得实在不顺。这位中国国家主席在华盛顿将会面临的问题是：这个夏天是否足够不顺，以及中国经济是否已足够脆弱，从而能够促成一份真正有抱负的双边投资协定。

译者/何黎