AsianGodfathers（亚洲教父）.doc

Donna Dong [11:38]:
而且我认为在成功的过程中,不断地锻炼自己是很不错的. 我认为现在的工作范围,世界还太小
Qin Shawn (WQQ7DDD) [11:39]:
ever tried to persuade u to stay away from ur comfortable area
Donna Dong [11:45]:
I would like to make a big change
Qin Shawn (WQQ7DDD) [11:46]:
Great.
Qin Shawn (WQQ7DDD) [11:48]:
and from my experience, split the big change into step-by-step minor change, then build up our skill, and more important it's about confidence
Donna Dong [11:49]:
yep, I understand
Qin Shawn (WQQ7DDD) [11:49]:

胡海：《Asian Godfathers（亚洲教父）》
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价值投资 2008-05-23 点击： 652
我早就把这本书放在亚马逊的购书栏里了，但因为还有不少书没看完，所以也一直没买。但前几天和张志雄交流时，谈到他一直在等这本书的中文版在台湾出版，却一直没等到。这让陡然增加了兴趣，马上把它买来看完。
· 这本书可以说是我读过的最好的，纪实类财经书籍之一，而在关于亚洲的书籍里，无疑是我读过的最好的。我怀疑，该书的中文版，至少在一段时间里，可能都是不会出现。
· 该书的主要内容虽然是关于东南亚（仅指新加坡/马来西亚/泰国/印尼/菲律宾）和香港的超级富豪们不那么光彩的致富之道。书中众多的故事，使全书有相当的可读性。但这不是一本简单的“财经八卦”书，而是对这些富豪们所代表的东南亚经济特点，有着细致/有说服力的分析。其目的，正如作者所指出的，不是为了“揭丑”，而是为了激发读者思考，怎么样才是持久的/平衡的发展之道。
· 虽然作者所暗示的政治化的改革方式，以我偏自由市场的口味来说，有点过于简单化，但毫无疑问，他的认识要比绝大多数的“左派”改良理论家的认识深刻/实际得多。但作者也确实相当有说服力地，对以弗里得曼为代表的所谓“自由派”的观点，提出了有力的挑战。
· 当读到这些富豪们如何官商勾结，愚弄大众，疯狂敛财时，一开始你可能会觉得愤怒：相对比而言，你会觉得中国的陈良宇/周正毅们真是太小儿科了；但接下来你会觉得困惑：在这些看上去是“民主”/“开放”的社会里，他们为什么能一次次地得片惩呢？最后，你会思考，到底是怎样的社会/经济/政治环境，养育了这些富豪（毕竟他们本质上和全世界的商人一样，都是在适应环境以获得利益最大化）？我们中国的经济发展，从中可以得到什么启发？
· 虽然我们早就知道马/泰/印/菲的腐败和混乱，但我原来对这些国家的政治经济情况并不很了解，而该书让我在这方面增加了很多知识，使我对这些国家中一系列眼花缭乱的政变/政权交替，有了比较清晰的理解（比如他信的起落）。如果要对这些国家进行投资的话，我现在会非常谨慎。（当然因为我原来对这些国家就缺乏了解，对作者论述的正确与否缺乏判断能力，但就与我所了解的一些信息相印证，感觉还是相当可信的。）
· 但给我带来最大启发的，还是作者对新加坡/香港经济模式/富豪的批评。（我读后的感觉，就像人们第一次听到极富洞察力的观点之后所常有的那样：我怎么这么笨，这么明显的事都没想到？）
· 虽然人们把新加坡/香港视为发展的模范，但实际上，这两个城市成功的根本原因，在于他们被腐败/低效的国家/地区所包围，而他们把自己定位为这些国家/地区提供洗钱/走私服务的中心。而新加坡/香港这两个地方，在政治/经济体制上虽然差别很大，但他们的人均GDP却没有大的区别。显示他们的根本优势，还是在于他们的地理位置和市场定位。
· 这也就解答了我原有一个疑惑：为什么一贯强调儒家道德的新加坡，会开赌，而且据说对卖淫态度比较宽松：它的定位就是一个洗钱中心，是经济罪犯的天堂。许多被印尼所追捕的经济罪犯都生活在新加坡，新加坡的相当大部分金融资产来自印尼富豪。近几年新加坡金融业发展很快的一个很大原因，在于欧洲的反洗钱法规越来越严，很多不愿见光的资金从瑞士转了过来。
· 而香港的起家源自走私，本来就不是什么秘密，而人们常有的一个错觉，以为它是一个完全自由化的经济体（弗里得曼认为它是全球经济最自己的地区）。但实际上，香港的对外经济（贸易）确实是最自由，但它的内部经济，却一点不自由，地产/公用事业/零售等各行各业都被寡头所垄断。（为了阻击零售业的竞争，李嘉诚不让家乐福的运货车进入长江实业拥有的物业地区，打断水电供应）
· 李嘉诚/李兆基这些富家们，尽管被大众视为“超人”/“股神”，但他们本质上都是“寻租者”。他们的利润都是来自于与垄断相关的行业，而没有一个人建立过一家有全球竞争力的企业。尽管几乎所有的富豪都要建立一个由穷至富/白手起家的形象，但正如作者所指出，除了个别随苏哈托起家的富豪外，几乎没有一个是真正出身穷人的。要么本来家庭出身就优越，要么是做了优越家庭的女婿。当然这些富豪确实是通过自己的努力使原有家庭的财富上了一个新的台阶，但这种努力主要是体现在利用已有的财富做资本，进行政治寻租。
· 李嘉诚总是说自己小时候如何穷，怎么没机会读书，实际上，在他为他自己富有的uncle（叔叔？舅舅？）工作之前，他读过几年书。然后他娶了老板的女儿（堂妹？表妹？）。他开始的生意得到丈人丈母娘的经济支持。毫无疑问，李是一名商业天才，但他的天才在于他搞关系/做交易的能力。而在自由竞争的环境下，他并没有体现出多少投资/管理的能力。作者指出，如果扣除他在垄断性资产和操纵市场/内幕交易中获得的利润后，即使加上他售“橙”中获得的巨额收益，他在开放市场上的投资收益，并不比被动投资的收益高。（有意思的是，就像热衷“庄股”的内地股民一样，被李一次次玩弄的香港股民，始终对“超人概念”乐此不疲。）
· 可是正是由于他们财富“寻租”的特征，这些富豪通常尽量保持低调，如果有负面新闻的话，马上毫不留情地打压。当苹果日报要登关于李嘉诚早已去世的夫人（港人普遍认为是自杀）的报道时，长江实业马上停止了在该报的所有广告。谢国忠的辞职，据说就是因为他给同事关于新加坡是洗钱中心的邮件被曝光（当然，摩根斯坦利表示他的邮件只是为了“激发内部讨论”，而他的辞职与此毫无关系。）这也是为什么我说我们可能永远看不到该书的中文版。
· 当然，相对而言，新加坡/香港还是比较好的地方。菲律宾警察表示2001年以来，有110其政治谋杀事件，而国际人权组织认为有200~700起。所以，香港积极推动小股东权益的David Webbs表示，他不会在马尼拉或吉隆坡做类似的尝试。
· 本书的一大观点，就是反驳流行的“文化论”/“种族论”：东南亚富豪普遍是华人后裔或有华人血统，不是因为“儒家文化”或“中华民族”像李光耀所宣称的那样，有什么特别的优势，而是历史和环境的原因。我认为作者的论述相当有说明力。（就像中国古代的“商（朝）人”并不是有什么天生做贸易的优势，而是因为商朝灭亡后，其后裔被禁止进入政治等领域，而只能从事当时最低贱的贸易。欧洲的犹太人也是类似的情况。）
· 作者指出，在东南亚，尽管华人掌握了大部分财富，但掌握这些财富的只是极少数人，大部分华人仍然过着很普通的生活。而从整体上讲，华人确实是要比当地人更勤奋/节俭，但那主要是因为作为后来的移民，他们只能得到贫瘠的土地（最好的资源早被当地人占有），不勤奋/节俭，就无法生存。而正是因为华人的政治地位是最低下的，所以他们被当地的贵族/精英/军人选择为政治威胁最小的商业代理人。实际上，有迹象显示，东南亚富豪们的财富/地位，和他们的“去中国化”程度上是成正比的：与当地文化融合越深，地位越高。
· 当然，更准确地讲，他们的财富地位，与他们的“文化本质”并无太大关系，而是取决于他们的适应/变化的能力。无论是早期的殖民统治者，后来的民族主义者，还是日本占领军，成功的富豪就是要能够根据政治统治者的变化，不断改变自己的颜色。随着香港/澳门的回归，以及近年来中国经济的强盛，越来越多的富豪成了“爱国人士”。（何赌王以二战时与日本人做贸易起家，现在则是知名的爱国人士。）一些为了开拓中国市场而尽力要向国人体现自己的“华人性”的富豪，实际上他们的华语能力已经很糟糕。
· 作者还有不少观点也很有见地：虽然大家都说中国做生意要靠“关系”，但由于中国社会的复杂性，“关系”也变得很复杂。（我也有这样的体会：即使你搞定了表面上的决策人，但一个小小科员的作梗，都可能让你面临麻烦。）作者举的一个例子是新加坡在苏州搞的新城。尽管李光耀是关系高手，搞定了中央政府，但苏州当地政府的不同意见，导致计划的失败。而真正的关系王国就是在东南亚：如果你搞定了当权者，就可以把国库当自己的ATM机用，直接从中央银行提钱。
· 作者所提到的富豪们所极力要显示的“节俭”/“勤奋”，也让我很有共鸣。全世界都知道李嘉诚戴西铁城手表，或者某某富豪飞机只坐经济仓，等等。但同样是这些节俭的富豪，却拥有众多的豪宅，劳斯来斯和女人。（不断说巴菲特住着老房子不也让人有点烦？也放他住的房子是有年头了，但有多少人有自己的私人飞机呢？）这些富豪经常称自己一周工作7天，每天12小时。但不要忘记，他们所说的工作可不是一般企业主所说的研究客户需求，开发新的产品，监督生产流程，而是指使下属，陪重要人物吃饭，打高尔夫球，和其他的娱乐节目。
· 当然，如作者一开始所说，指责这些富豪是没有意义的。寻租本身也是降低市场交易成本的一种方式，在特定市场情况下有其价值。而在过去几十年中，东南亚经济也确实有了长足的发展。但这种发展的主要动力在于出口生产业，而东南亚富豪几乎全部出自寻租者而不是这些出口制造业（没有一家具全球竞争力的品牌公司）这一事实，使人担忧这种发展的可持续性。当经济发展到一定程度，寻租者所赖以生存的屏障，就会成为制约进一步发展的障碍。而寻租者的利益所在，以及寻租者已具备的强大的经济/政治实力，使得打破这种屏障极度困难。而令人担忧的是，中国目前好象也正在体现这一问题。
· “菲律宾，从更小的程度讲还有泰国，经常被李光耀等政治人物引为太多的民主对发展不利的证据。但这些国家所真正证明的是，民主有不同的形式，而且仅仅是一个组成部份。可行的自由政治体制，还需要有效的、独立的法律体系、警察队伍、政府机构和中央银行。。。。东南亚并没提供民主是失败的教训，但提供了很多教训让我们了解让民主能运作是很复杂的。”
· 东南亚金融危机前的一些迹象：投资在GDP中的比例从25%上升到40%；实际利率很低或是负值；1/5~1/4的银行贷款投向房产项目；外资大量流入；东南亚货币所盯住的美元汇率相对日元走软。（有多少迹象和目前中国相像？）
· 与东南亚所不同的，显示出更有竞争力的日本/韩国/台湾模式（这些国家/地区地拥有具全球品牌/竞争力的企业）：（1）都实际了土地改革；（2）政府扶持能显示创新能力的企业；（3）对政治改革更认真。（我认为第1条比较有说服力，而第2第3条，似乎与实际情况并非完全附合。）

Asian Godfathers: Money and Power in Hong Kong and South-East Asia

Written by Our Correspondent   
WEDNESDAY, 22 AUGUST 2007
Joe Studwell
330 pages
Published by Profile Books, London

See Also: How to be a Godfather (Part 2)
We present herewith the first of two excerpts from Asian Godfathers, a unique book on the role of monopolies and crony capitalism in East Asia. Much, mostly hagiographic, has been written about the fabulously wealthy group of mostly overseas Chinese whose names are familiar throughout the region and have been widely assumed to have been responsible for its economic growth.

However, there have been few attempts to examine dispassionately the real role of the great tycoons and the origins of their wealth, or to put them into the context of the fast-growing, immediate post-colonial societies in which they prospered.

Joe Studwell, editor of the China Economic Quarterly, has done so and with a flair for writing that is matched by an understanding of the region’s economic and social dynamics. Studwell was previously author of “The China Dream -- The elusive Quest For The Greatest Untapped Market on earth.” an incisive look at the myths and realities of the China market for foreigners.

Asian Godfathers shows again that Studwell is a master at separating harsh reality from comfortable myth and, without muck-taking, to put into print important if unpalatable facts which are known in elite and media circles but which the power of the tycoons often keeps out of the media.

The book is currently on sale in all the countries/territories with which it deals -- Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore – with the sole exception of Singapore.

How to be a Post-war Godfather

“We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become
disguised to ourselves.” --La Rochefoucauld

The post-Second World War, post-independence environment was one of great turbulence. But the enduring interdependence of separate political and economic élites was not broken. Certainly the era of rising class consciousness and aggressive nationalism in the 1950s and 1960s (and earlier in Thailand) was threatening to the overseas Chinese and Indian communities. But the people who really suffered were shopkeepers, small businessmen and laborers, not the godfather class.

As organized labor and nationalism were reined in by a new group of authoritarian leaders, it was striking how they not only fell back on colonial era modes of interaction with ethnic minority businessmen, but in many instances reinforced them. The challenge to the godfathers therefore came not from any structural shift in society, but in coping with the struggle for power among indigenous political élites once the colonials had exited. In this respect the tycoons’ ability to get into, and change, character was more important than ever.

In Thailand, Field Marshal Sarit Dhanarajata’s 1957–63 regime stabilized relations with Chinese and Indian trading élites based on the military as their passive business partners. Although the country’s post-1932 political history is superficially chaotic – Sarit’s is only one of eighteen coups to have taken place, the most recent being the ouster of Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006 – after 1957 it was rare for incoming juntas and governments to move against incumbent tycoons. Instead, the godfathers became adept at backing all factions.

As Sarasin Viraphol, Dhanin Chearavanont’s top executive at his sprawling chickens-to-telecoms CP group, says, it is a matter of money and good housekeeping: ‘We back everyone … And you would always have a portrait of the military leader on the wall. That was general practice. And of the commander of police, the commissioner for metropolitan Bangkok …Even Chin Sophonpanich, who was so tight with Sarit rivals and heroin traffickers Phao Sriyanonda and Field Marshal Phin Choonhavan that he skipped town to Hong Kong when Sarit took power in 1957, was allowed to continue building Bangkok Bank into Thailand’s largest financial institution from exile. It was, says Sarasin, a ‘gentleman’s game’ of coups.

There was greater godfather discontinuity in Indonesia in the 1960s than there was in Thailand after Sarit put an end to populist nationalism. Following Sukarno’s chaotic nationalisation of foreign business in the 1950s, the repatriation of tens of thousands of Chinese in 1960 and the anti-communist blood bath of 1965, Suharto turned reflexively to the Chinese businessmen he was familiar with after he seized power. This meant a handful of relatively unknown business people being catapulted to the top of the godfather pile.

The most important were long-time associate Mohamad ‘Bob’ Hasan, an ethnic Chinese convert to Islam, and Liem Sioe Liong also known as Sudono Salim, who rose from petty trader to the nation’s leading businessman in a few years. The precariousness of Suharto’s position – or at least his perception of it – as he shored up his power in the late 1960s made the relationship between him, as the Javanese political insider, and his business cronies, as unthreatening ethnic Chinese outsiders, all the more important. Throughout his reign, Suharto was said by confidantes in Jakarta to complain that pribumi businessmen could not be ‘trusted’; the Chinese could. In time a small number of ethnic Indian and Sri Lankan businessmen also became key dependents. The best-known of these was the Sri Lankan Tamil Marimutu Sinivasan, a long-term conduit for political slush funds for Suharto’s Golkar party.

Sinivasan’s Texmaco Group was able, on Suharto’s authority, to secure US$900 million in hard currency from the central bank at the height of the Asian financial crisis and, after the dictator fell, was said by the Indonesian government to be its biggest delinquent creditor, owing US$2 billion.

In the Philippines another usurper, Ferdinand Marcos, demonstrated a similar response to Suharto’s with respect to the possibilities of godfather relationships. After winning two presidential terms in (distinctly dirty) elections, Marcos circumvented his country’s two-term presidential limit by declaring martial law in 1972. Like Suharto, he also looked beyond the established godfather élite – in the Philippines, traditional Spanish and Chinese mestizo families – to find some of his key business proxies. The archetype was Lucio Tan, a first-generation immigrant and one-time janitor who became, under Marcos’ patronage, the Philippines’ leading tobacco vendor, as well as having interests in everything from banking to real estate.

It is probable that – as with Liem Sioe Liong, who knew Suharto from the latter’s military postings in central Java – Tan and Marcos knew each other from Ilocos, the president’s home region where Tan had his first, small cigarette factory. Both Suharto and Marcos signalled regime change by promoting new, non-indigenous outsiders to godfather roles. Tan was a clear break in the ethnically more mixed and integrated Philippines because he represented the so-called ‘one-syllable Chinese’ – those who had not assimilated and adopted local surnames.

The promotion of new outsiders achieved two useful things for the dictators: it provided ultra-dependent, ultra-loyal sources of future finance for them and their families; and it served as a warning to the established, more integrated economic élite that it was not indispensable.

In the pre-Marcos Philippines, businessmen of every ethnic make-up had been increasingly successful in overrunning and manipulating a weak parliamentary system and thereby obviating the need to make deals with ultimate political power. Ferdy reversed this trend, though it remains a latent tendency in both the Philippines and Thailand whenever central leadership is weakened.

Malaysia’s chronology ran later than those of surrounding nations, but still observed a pattern of rising populist class consciousness and nationalism followed by a return to nested relationships between political and economic élites. Colonial rule did not end until 1957 and its last decade was bound up with a fight against a significant communist insurgency, led by the largely ethnic Chinese (with a few Indians) Communist Party of Malaya (CPM).

The departure of the British gave way to an era of somewhat phoney independence inasmuch as the colonial economic architecture was left almost untouched; this was agreed to by the Malay aristocrats who assumed power. Nationalism eventually arrived with the 1969 riots, leading to the New Economic Policy (NEP).

The promise of pro-bumiputera affirmative action, however, could never disguise the persistence of what came to be known in Malaysia as ‘political business’ at the élite level. Affirmative action in education and employment targeted ordinary Chinese and Indians – the latter were big losers because they were turfed out of the civil service – while financial sector policies benefited upper-class bumiputras. Rural bumpitutras remained poor, while Chinese and Indian godfathers became richer than ever. Racial ghettoisation was sustained, not least because the rising political star of the 1970s, Mahathir Mohamad, saw it as all but inevitable. Mahathir set out his unabashedly race-based views on the roots of economic success in his book The Malay Dilemma, published in 1970 while he was briefly expelled from the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), and banned in Malaysia. It is indicative of Mahathir’s thinking that one solution he proposed for Malays’ perceived genetic handicap was intermarriage with other races. He himself had an Indian Malayali
father from Kerala and a Malay mother, a fact that is never publicly mentioned in Malaysia.

In popular politics, Mahathir’s racial arguments were used to justify affirmative action. But in terms of personal conduct, his own prejudices shone through. After becoming prime minister in 1981, he patronised a small group of ethnic Chinese and Sri Lankan Tamil businessmen whom he deemed the people most likely to carry forward his vision of a thoroughly modernized Malaysia. It was left to his long-tim