是围绕中国Minmetals收购加拿大的Noranda公司发表的评论.中华会馆是不是该出来抗议一下.
Someone must stop this deal
Is the premium worth the price?
Terence Corcoran
Financial Post
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
If ever a global takeover deserves to be shot down by Ottawa, the China Minmetals senseless plan to play games of global Monopoly with Noranda Inc. would be it. If only there were a way. Finding a rationale for scuttling the $7-billion deal wouldn't be easy under international law, or even Canadian law. Maybe we should send in the United Nations.
Nothing about this takeover makes business, political or ideological sense. OK, Noranda shareholders might get a premium on their shares and make off with a nifty profit; so probably did the German steel mills when they struck cozy arrangements with Hitler.
Before we get to the moral and strategic aspects of allowing Canadian assets to be picked up by the essentially fascist government of China, on the backs of Chinese workers and taxpayers, let's begin with the ga-ga media coverage here at home.
Foremost in the media is the loopy idea that because China needs copper, it needs to buy copper mines all over the world.
News that Noranda was negotiating its sale to China Minmetals, a giant state-owned conglomerate with more tangled corporate involvements than an octopus herd, was hailed as a bold breakout move on the part of the Chinese. "China goes global to feed its resource appetite," said one headline.
The idea that China needs to secure ownership of global natural resources to keep its miracle industrial machine surging forward, a particularly groundless economic theory, has become a commonplace on the international policy/consultant circuit. A typical proponent of this idea is Howard Balloch, a former Canadian ambassador to China who has been widely-quoted to the effect that China must "feed the beast."
China, noted Mr. Balloch in a recent speech, "is a very hungry dragon and its demand for copper and nickel and oil have long outpaced domestic supply." While China might need resources, there's a big open global market in those commodities. You want copper? A dozen traders, hedgers, miners, speculators and corporations will get you copper.
No country needs to secure ownership of resources all over the globe to supply domestic industries, unless, of course, that country is run as a giant totalitarian state. Japan has no resources at all, and yet even during the worst of its industrial planning years managed to create a massive industrial export economy without mounting expensive takeovers of far-flung mineral pits. (Peter Foster reminds me that some Japanese institutions did sink a fortune into Canada's Dome Petroleum back in the 1980s, and they're still waiting for the oil. But that was an exception, not the rule.)
There is no national Chinese advantage in owning a company such as Noranda. The international economic case for China's takeover of Noranda is, therefore, baseless. Within the context of China's shambles of an economy, most of it locked in the grip of giant inefficient state-owned enterprises, the Noranda deal fails to meet any reasonable business or economic test.
Among China's state-owned enterprises, China Minmetals may not be the worst in this, but its corporate strategy has all the markings of an out-of-control conglomerate. It's mandate is "to operate state-owned assets and make investments with authorization from the government; international shipping business; leasing, finance and insurance; hotel and tourism business and other service industries; real estate; international loan projects; international engineering contracting business; information service, exhibition, advertisement and technical exchanges; other businesses allowed in accordance with relative laws and regulations."
What would Minmetals gain from paying $7-billion for Noranda? Minmetals holds no expertise that it can bring to Noranda's international operations. The combination holds no competitive advantages in creating major market efficiencies. There are no benefits in diversification, least of all for Minmetals, which is clearly a tangled web of more than 200 companies in scores of industries. If anything, in a market economy Minmetals would be broken apart.
Companies such as Minmetals are not the heart of China's entrepreneurial explosion. The real source of economic expansion in China, and it's dramatic export growth, is not even China. It comes from foreign firms, from appliance makers to shirt manufacturers and other non-mainland entrepreneurs who are capitalizing on China's labour and other strategic advantages. Local Chinese entrepreneurship is systematically stifled by the oppressive Chinese government and the massive dead weight of state run corporations.
The top executives running companies such as Minmetals are part of a network of corporatist power players and political brokers who thrive on state power and contacts. Hundreds of millions of Chinese, deprived of most basic rights, are at the mercy of these back-room operators. As the Hoover Institution's Barry Naughton wrote not too long ago, privatization is rare and fraudulent when it occurs. "Economic policy is increasingly shaped by interest groups.... Bureaucratic stakeholders and vested economic interests vie for influence over economic policy."
Will Canada just sit by while Canadian assets are essentially taken over by the government of China? Maybe we have no choice. But the prospects for Noranda under Chinese government control cannot be good. The Minmetals takeover brings nothing to Noranda, except the high risk of bad decisions and destruction of economic wealth. Once owned by China, it will be mostly the taxpayers and citizens of China who will bear the burden. But to the extent the Chinese government holds sway over the assets Noranda owns in Canada, the losses to Canada could be significant.
Then there's the moral issue of selling through market systems to a government that is still essentially totalitarian in its style and outlook. It is not a democracy, it has no serious property rights, no recognizable human rights, no economic freedom. In fact, China's economic record -- despite the progress made to date -- is one of economic repression.
We wouldn't let Ottawa take over Petro-Canada today. How can we stand by while China nationalizes Noranda? Maybe there's nothing Ottawa can do. But there is too much going on here to justify silence on the part of Canadians. Above all, we cannot continue to treat this story the way we have -- as just another corporate takeover between free enterprise nations. It is not.
Someone must stop this deal
Is the premium worth the price?
Terence Corcoran
Financial Post
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
If ever a global takeover deserves to be shot down by Ottawa, the China Minmetals senseless plan to play games of global Monopoly with Noranda Inc. would be it. If only there were a way. Finding a rationale for scuttling the $7-billion deal wouldn't be easy under international law, or even Canadian law. Maybe we should send in the United Nations.
Nothing about this takeover makes business, political or ideological sense. OK, Noranda shareholders might get a premium on their shares and make off with a nifty profit; so probably did the German steel mills when they struck cozy arrangements with Hitler.
Before we get to the moral and strategic aspects of allowing Canadian assets to be picked up by the essentially fascist government of China, on the backs of Chinese workers and taxpayers, let's begin with the ga-ga media coverage here at home.
Foremost in the media is the loopy idea that because China needs copper, it needs to buy copper mines all over the world.
News that Noranda was negotiating its sale to China Minmetals, a giant state-owned conglomerate with more tangled corporate involvements than an octopus herd, was hailed as a bold breakout move on the part of the Chinese. "China goes global to feed its resource appetite," said one headline.
The idea that China needs to secure ownership of global natural resources to keep its miracle industrial machine surging forward, a particularly groundless economic theory, has become a commonplace on the international policy/consultant circuit. A typical proponent of this idea is Howard Balloch, a former Canadian ambassador to China who has been widely-quoted to the effect that China must "feed the beast."
China, noted Mr. Balloch in a recent speech, "is a very hungry dragon and its demand for copper and nickel and oil have long outpaced domestic supply." While China might need resources, there's a big open global market in those commodities. You want copper? A dozen traders, hedgers, miners, speculators and corporations will get you copper.
No country needs to secure ownership of resources all over the globe to supply domestic industries, unless, of course, that country is run as a giant totalitarian state. Japan has no resources at all, and yet even during the worst of its industrial planning years managed to create a massive industrial export economy without mounting expensive takeovers of far-flung mineral pits. (Peter Foster reminds me that some Japanese institutions did sink a fortune into Canada's Dome Petroleum back in the 1980s, and they're still waiting for the oil. But that was an exception, not the rule.)
There is no national Chinese advantage in owning a company such as Noranda. The international economic case for China's takeover of Noranda is, therefore, baseless. Within the context of China's shambles of an economy, most of it locked in the grip of giant inefficient state-owned enterprises, the Noranda deal fails to meet any reasonable business or economic test.
Among China's state-owned enterprises, China Minmetals may not be the worst in this, but its corporate strategy has all the markings of an out-of-control conglomerate. It's mandate is "to operate state-owned assets and make investments with authorization from the government; international shipping business; leasing, finance and insurance; hotel and tourism business and other service industries; real estate; international loan projects; international engineering contracting business; information service, exhibition, advertisement and technical exchanges; other businesses allowed in accordance with relative laws and regulations."
What would Minmetals gain from paying $7-billion for Noranda? Minmetals holds no expertise that it can bring to Noranda's international operations. The combination holds no competitive advantages in creating major market efficiencies. There are no benefits in diversification, least of all for Minmetals, which is clearly a tangled web of more than 200 companies in scores of industries. If anything, in a market economy Minmetals would be broken apart.
Companies such as Minmetals are not the heart of China's entrepreneurial explosion. The real source of economic expansion in China, and it's dramatic export growth, is not even China. It comes from foreign firms, from appliance makers to shirt manufacturers and other non-mainland entrepreneurs who are capitalizing on China's labour and other strategic advantages. Local Chinese entrepreneurship is systematically stifled by the oppressive Chinese government and the massive dead weight of state run corporations.
The top executives running companies such as Minmetals are part of a network of corporatist power players and political brokers who thrive on state power and contacts. Hundreds of millions of Chinese, deprived of most basic rights, are at the mercy of these back-room operators. As the Hoover Institution's Barry Naughton wrote not too long ago, privatization is rare and fraudulent when it occurs. "Economic policy is increasingly shaped by interest groups.... Bureaucratic stakeholders and vested economic interests vie for influence over economic policy."
Will Canada just sit by while Canadian assets are essentially taken over by the government of China? Maybe we have no choice. But the prospects for Noranda under Chinese government control cannot be good. The Minmetals takeover brings nothing to Noranda, except the high risk of bad decisions and destruction of economic wealth. Once owned by China, it will be mostly the taxpayers and citizens of China who will bear the burden. But to the extent the Chinese government holds sway over the assets Noranda owns in Canada, the losses to Canada could be significant.
Then there's the moral issue of selling through market systems to a government that is still essentially totalitarian in its style and outlook. It is not a democracy, it has no serious property rights, no recognizable human rights, no economic freedom. In fact, China's economic record -- despite the progress made to date -- is one of economic repression.
We wouldn't let Ottawa take over Petro-Canada today. How can we stand by while China nationalizes Noranda? Maybe there's nothing Ottawa can do. But there is too much going on here to justify silence on the part of Canadians. Above all, we cannot continue to treat this story the way we have -- as just another corporate takeover between free enterprise nations. It is not.
