Chapter 59 2007 The Rise of Great Powers

Behind the hot discussion of "The Rise of a Great Power", there is undoubtedly a gushing "great power complex".Many people may not have watched this feature film, but just these four words are enough to make people excited.At the beginning of the year, many economists had already predicted that by the end of the year, China's GDP would surpass that of Germany and become the third largest economy in the world after the United States and Japan. Fariq Zakaria, editor-in-chief of the international edition of "Newsweek", in "Does the Future Belong to China?" " said in an affirmative tone: "China's rise is no longer a prophecy, it is already a fact."

It was in such a warm atmosphere that Chinese people began to become confident, and traditional culture became a new fashion.A TV program about traditional Chinese culture, "Hundred Schools Lecture Forum", became the most popular program. Yi Zhongtian and Yu Dan, who talked about "Three Kingdoms" and "Three Kingdoms", quickly became the most famous university professors in the country. Their books are the best-selling books in bookstores. Bestsellers, they are star chased everywhere they go.Even SHE, a Taiwanese girl group, used "Chinese" as the title song of their new album of the year. They sang: "The whole world is speaking Chinese, and what we say makes the world listen carefully."

We still need to learn what kind of "great power mentality" and what kind of "great power responsibility" a country that makes the world listen carefully should maintain.The news that happened next is very thought-provoking.Just as CCTV's "The Rise of Great Powers" became a hot topic, a host of this TV station sparked another controversy. On January 12, Rui Chenggang, an English anchor of China Central Television, issued an appeal on his blog: "Please ask Starbucks to remove the store in the Forbidden City of China." This blog was clicked more than 500,000 times within two days.This Starbucks coffee shop opened in 2000, "hidden" in a corner of the antique hall of the Forbidden City, which was the "Jiuqing Dynasty House" in history.It is one of the smallest chain stores of Starbucks in China, with an operating area of ​​only a dozen square meters. There is only one table by the window and five chairs in the small space.Rui Chenggang believes that Starbucks is a representative symbol of unrefined food culture, and the Starbucks in the Forbidden City is a waste of traditional Chinese culture, and "has been passed down as a laughing stock in Western upper class."To this end, Rui Chenggang, who is proficient in English, also sent a letter of protest to Starbucks President Jim Donald in his own name.

Anchor Rui's protest quickly received a warm response.At the National People's Congress in March, some deputies to the National People's Congress jointly proposed to close the coffee shop on the grounds that it "stained traditional Chinese culture".A Reuters reporter quoted Jiang Hongbin, a deputy to the People's Congress of Heilongjiang Province and chairman of the Sino-Thai joint venture Heilongjiang Zhengda Industrial Co., Ltd., as saying, "Starbucks should be moved out of the Forbidden City immediately, and it cannot be allowed to continue to tarnish traditional Chinese culture. As long as it stays in the Forbidden City One day, it is one more challenge to our culture." On July 13, the Starbucks store in the Forbidden City was closed and evacuated.The battle to defend traditional culture launched by Rui Chenggang won a complete victory.However, the problem that the "defenders" can't solve is that after Starbucks withdraws, what should tourists do if they want to drink a cup of coffee, especially the 1.6 million foreign tourists a year?So, the most ironic thing happened two months after Starbucks withdrew. On September 21, a coffee shop called "Forbidden City Cafe" (Forbidden City Coffee Shop) quietly opened again in "Jiuqing Chaofang".

In 2007, besides Rui Chenggang, the CCTV anchor who wanted to drive Starbucks out of the Forbidden City, there was another person who almost became a "defender of national industries". He was Zong Qinghou of Wahaha Group. On April 2, "Economic Information Daily" used the title "Zong Qinghou Regrets", disclosing that Zong Qinghou regretted the joint venture contract signed 11 years ago.He said, “Due to the ignorance of the meaning of trademarks and brands at the time, the development of Wahaha fell into a trap carefully set by Danone.” "Defending the safety of national industries". Four days later, Zong Qinghou accepted an online interview on Sina.com. More than 90% of netizens agreed to terminate the contract with Danone, Zong Qinghou was greatly encouraged.French Danone reacted immediately, accusing Zong Qinghou of engaging in "in vitro activities" in the past few years, and successively established 61 non-joint ventures outside the joint venture parent body. In vitro" project scale and operating performance even surpassed that of joint ventures.Fan Yimou, president of Danone China, said angrily that Zong Qinghou should spend the rest of his life in litigation.The two sides were full of gunpowder, and soon reached the point where it was difficult to reconcile.Zong Qinghou announced his resignation as the chairman of the board. Wahaha employees and distributors issued several boxer-style open letters. Some employees even pulled up banners in protest at the entrance of the five-star hotel where the board meeting was held.Danone, on the other hand, filed an international lawsuit in a court in Stockholm, Sweden.

From the perspective of Wahaha's property rights evolution, the logic of this "divorce lawsuit" is clearly visible. Twenty years ago, Zong Qinghou started a factory with the money he saved from selling exercise books and popsicles. However, he was trapped by the system and had to wear a "red hat" of collective economy. What they did was to "wash" the company back into their own. In 1996, he completed the first property reorganization through a joint venture with Danone, which invested US$45 million to acquire a 51% stake in Wahaha.Then in the property rights clarification campaign in 1999, Zong Qinghou managed to get the government to agree to transfer 54% of the state-owned assets to him and his team, of which he personally owned 29.4% of the shares.After that, Zong Qinghou began to set up "in vitro companies" on a large scale. The products of these companies all use the Wahaha brand owned by the joint venture company. At the end of 2006, Danone protested against his behavior, and proposed to either terminate the use of the Wahaha brand, or sell the "In vitro company" to Danone.Zong Qinghou refused, and immediately sounded the drum of confrontation in the name of "defending the safety of the national industry".

The public opinion war between wahhaha and Danone is the most lively financial news in the first half of this year.This seemingly ignited "wahaha defense war" has not been echoed by the mainstream financial media. Many financial people believe that the beverage industry is already a completely open and competitive field, and state protection is no longer necessary. Zong Qinghou tried to break the contract. The necessary spirit of contract, and his attempt to use nationalist fanaticism to achieve his own commercial goals should not be supported.Some reporters found through careful investigation that Zong Qinghou and his wife and daughter had held foreign passports several years ago.Since 1998, Zong Qinghou and his family have quietly established 11 overseas offshore companies abroad, and developed dozens of non-Danone joint ventures based on them.That is to say, if Zong Qinghou is able to take back the Wahaha brand from Danone, it has nothing to do with the national industry in terms of "capital ties".

Until the end of the year, the "divorce lawsuit" between Zong Qinghou and Danone was still undecided and full of various variables.It allows people to see the various flexibility and twists and turns of Chinese-style business, and also shows the use and struggle of different interest owners on policies and the environment. For a rising power, in addition to adjusting mentality, there is also responsibility. This year's "May 1st" Golden Week, tourists who visited Taihu Lake found that there was a layer of green film floating on the water surface in many areas. The thickest place seemed to be covered with a layer of green paint.Experts explained that this is a cyanobacteria outbreak.Cyanobacteria is a primitive and ancient algae prokaryote, which often reproduces in large numbers in summer, and forms a layer of blue-green and foul-smelling foam on the water surface after decay.

By May 29, due to the outbreak of blue-green algae, the quality of tap water in the homes of a large number of urban residents in Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province suddenly deteriorated. The smell was unpleasant and they could not drink normally. The purified water in supermarkets was sold out.The blue-green algae incident shocked the whole country.The bloom of blue-green algae is completely caused by industrial pollution.There are many chemical companies along the coast of Taihu Lake, and the sewage discharge is not monitored, resulting in serious eutrophication of Taihu Lake water, with the average nitrogen and phosphorus content being more than 10 times higher than the standard.In the past two years, the annual discharge of industrial and domestic sewage in the Taihu Lake Basin has reached 5.3 billion tons, while the sewage treatment rate is only about 30%. The total amount of pollutants has far exceeded the carrying capacity of the water environment of the Basin. A reporter from China Youth Daily saw during an interview in Zhoutie Town, Yixing City, Jiangsu Province that this small town with a total area of ​​only 73.2 square kilometers had more than 30 chemical companies at most.What the reporter saw by the Taihu Lake was that the area of ​​about one or two hundred square meters by the lake was covered in blue, green, black, gray and other colors. It has all solidified into a block, like a cesspit, with many flies staying on it.Three fishing boats were docked on the shore, but they were obviously out of use.There are quite a few reeds by the lake, but the stems of the reeds have been dyed by blue-green pollutants.Occasionally, a few water birds flew over the lake, but they could not find a foothold and had to fly far away.

The disaster of Taihu Lake is just a microcosm of China's water pollution. In July, Pan Yue, deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, revealed with great sorrow that water pollution is approaching a dangerous critical point. Except for the main streams of the seven major rivers in the country, the water quality is acceptable due to the large water volume, and almost all the tributaries are necrotic.The country's 10-year and huge investment efforts and achievements have been offset by subsequent re-pollution in the watershed."If we don't effectively control water pollution, we may face serious social harmony problems before industrialization and urbanization are completed," Pan Yue said.

Zooming in again, water pollution is another microcosm of environmental degradation.While continuing to develop at a high speed, high pollution and high energy consumption have become two embarrassing companions in the rise of a great power.According to a World Bank report, China has 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world.Along with economic success, the severity of environmental pollution has reached an unbearable level.The international organization puts it bluntly: "No country has ever experienced such a massive and rapid increase in waste production." Last year, British "Independent" reporter Charles Walker said in a report titled "Wake Up, Smell the Smell of Carbide" that China emits more carbon dioxide than the whole of Europe in a year.If viewed from space, the positions of Beijing and Shanghai are large sulfur-containing clouds.In southern China, industrial pollution in Guangdong Province has affected Hong Kong.Over the past 3 years, the number of days with reduced visibility in Hong Kong has tripled, and 40% of businesses have difficulty recruiting expatriates due to this factor. The US "Newsweek" published an article entitled "China Exports Pollution".The reporter wrote, "For years, Beijing's air has been like a cloudy bowl of egg drop soup... In the West, 'Made in China' is synonymous with cheap goods, but now the country is exporting something more expensive: Environmental degradation. Acid rain and other pollutants are poisoning nearly a quarter of China's arable land, and even crops in parts of Japan and South Korea are dying from China's acid rain. Dust storms caused by excessive logging and grassland degradation are raging in the north and even blowing to the west coast of the United States. Today, 27% of China’s land is desertified. The United States is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and China is the second largest source of pollution in the world.” This year, as the Olympic Games approached, Beijing's air pollution became a topic of international concern again. In November, Phoenix Weekly revealed that the USOC was considering whether to equip American athletes with activated carbon air-filtering masks.The weekly said, "Although the idea of ​​wearing a face mask will cause the host Beijing to lose 'face' and is not an act of a good guest, experts from the US Olympic Committee have not given up the feasibility test of this plan from the perspective of protecting the health of athletes." The economic growth model with high energy consumption is also facing extreme challenges.According to experts' calculations, my country's GDP accounts for 5.5% of the world's GDP, but the amount of resources consumed for this is astonishing. We consume 8% of the world's total oil consumption, 40% of raw coal, and crude oil. 32% of steel, 25% of alumina, 48% of cement, 33% of glass, and 30% of fertilizer.Due to the rapid growth of resource consumption, the foreign dependence of my country's main mineral resources has risen from 5% in 1990 to more than 50% in 2007, and this trend is still developing. China's high energy consumption has become one of the important factors of global energy shortage, and there is even a strange phenomenon that "what China buys is expensive and what it sells is cheap".Coexisting with high energy consumption is low energy utilization efficiency. China’s thermal power supply coal consumption is 379 grams of standard coal per kilowatt-hour, which is 67 grams higher than the international advanced level; The advanced level is 95 kg higher; the AC power consumption of electrolytic aluminum is 15,080 kWh per ton, which is 980 kWh higher than the international advanced level; the heating energy consumption per unit building area is equivalent to 2 to 3 times that of developed countries with similar climates; The fuel consumption is more than 1 times higher than the international advanced level; the total power of various types of electric motors in my country is about 420 million kilowatts, and the operating efficiency is more than 10 percentage points lower than the international advanced level, which is equivalent to an additional power consumption of about 150 billion kWh per year. Clearly, this is an unsustainable growth model.In the autumn of this year, the National Development and Reform Commission arranged 540 million yuan of national debt funds to support 98 key energy-saving projects. The State Council also signed 45 energy-saving target responsibility letters with local and central key enterprises. At the same time, the new "Energy Conservation Law" will be introduced soon.British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said that "greatness comes at the price of responsibility." As a peacefully rising major country, China must seriously face challenges. This year's Chinese stock market can only be described in four words, "Carnival for the whole people".This is another feast for the capital market since 1999.Since the Shanghai stock index broke through 2,000 points last year, the recovery of the stock market has become a fact. There was a premeditated washout at the end of February, followed by singing all the way.During the half-year period from April to September, the stock index continued to rise, hot spots changed frequently, the market value expanded geometrically, and the price-earnings ratio was as high as 50 to 60 times, or even hundreds of times. There are quite a few stocks.During this period, there were as many as 300,000 new account holders every day, and these people poured in not only from urban white-collar workers and financial management veterans, but also from college students, farmers, small traders, and aunts from neighbors. Pawnbrokers everywhere are booming, and many people have bought their cars, houses, borrowed money from the bank, and rushed into the rising market. They may not even understand the meaning of the price-earnings ratio.An online song "I will not sell it if I die" composed by a female stockholder in Hangzhou has become the ringtone of many people's mobile phones.This song is sung like this, "If you die, you won't sell it. If you don't give me double, you won't be happy. Only in this way can we retail investors not be defeated. If you die, you won't sell it. If you don't rise to panic, you won't be happy. The heart of investing in China will always be there. .” By May 25, the total number of accounts opened in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets exceeded 100 million. On August 9, the total market value of the stocks of listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen reached 21.147 trillion yuan, exceeding the total GDP of 21.087 trillion yuan in the previous year. This means that the total market value of my country's A-share listed companies exceeded domestic production for the first time. total value.If the market capitalization of mainland companies listed in Hong Kong is included, the total market capitalization of China's stock market has surpassed that of Japan, becoming the second largest in the world. On the morning of August 23, in the anticipation of the public, the Shanghai Composite Index jumped through the 5,000-point mark, thus realizing a historic leap in the Chinese stock market.On many trading days, the turnover of China's stock market even exceeds the sum of transactions in other Asian markets. As the capital market has entered the most prosperous period in history, the market value of Chinese companies has reached unprecedented heights.By August, the market capitalization of Aluminum Corporation of China had surpassed the sum of the market capitalization of the world's two largest aluminum companies, and the market capitalization of Shenzhen Vanke was 40% higher than the sum of the market capitalization of the four largest real estate companies in the United States. On October 16, Bloomberg, the world's largest financial information provider, released data showing that among the top ten listed companies with the highest market capitalization in the world, Chinese companies have been evenly divided with American companies, accounting for 4 seats each.Among them, PetroChina ranked second, China Mobile, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Sinopec ranked fourth, fifth and eighth respectively.Twenty days after the news was released, Chinese companies once again shocked the world business community. On November 5, PetroChina was listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The stock price opened higher, and the market value reached 1.1 trillion US dollars. It is followed by the combined market capitalization of ExxonMobil and General Electric.Other companies that entered the world's top ten market capitalization companies are Exxon Mobil (1), General Electric (3), Microsoft (6), AT&T (10), Dutch Shell (7), and Gazprom (9). For this phenomenon of high market value, the domestic industry has shown extremely complicated feelings.PetroChina's performance is further evidence of the power of monopoly and the huge bubble in the stock market.Some people compare it with Exxon Mobil and find that the operating income of the latter is four times that of PetroChina, but the profit margin is only half of that of PetroChina. Obviously, it is difficult to attribute this profit advantage of PetroChina to its competitiveness. reflect.Mainland China's stock market has now surpassed Japan's in size, but China's GDP is only 60% of Japan's.This is not commensurate with the development stage of China's economy.Through the carnival of the stock market, what people see is the capital restlessness and irrational market prosperity accompanying the rising period of China's economy. Even in this carnival of the stock market, people are still desperate to see that the gray color of manipulation and speculation has not disappeared, and there are signs of getting stronger.According to the observation of Wu Xiaoqiu, director of the Institute of Finance and Securities at Renmin University of China, the capital market in 2007 entered the most serious period of violations of laws and regulations in history.He suggests three behaviors to watch out for.One is the increasingly rampant insider trading. He believes that the current insider trading in the market is the most rampant in 17 years. "Insider trading was still on a small scale in the past, but now it is doing it in an all-round way, which will seriously damage the foundation of the continued growth of China's capital market. And the bottom line of morality, we must be vigilant enough. Insider trading will slowly lose confidence in the Chinese market.” The second is the lawless market manipulation behavior that is very worrying.The third is the intensified false information disclosure and large-scale additional issuance of some listed companies. These warnings from Wu Xiaoqiu are actually not new at all. People were tired of hearing them in 2000, but few people remember them now.At the beginning of the year, the performance of *ST Baoshuo can provide the most vivid evidence for this concern.This is a miraculous stock. It has gone out of more than ten daily limits since February, and the stock price per share has risen from 2.30 yuan to nearly 20 yuan. The reason why it is hyped is "this is the most garbage stock in the Chinese stock market." ". *ST Baoshuo is a professional manufacturer of plastic products and pipes in Baoding City, Hebei Province. In its 2006 annual report, the company reported a loss of 1.662 billion yuan, and there were problems such as overdue loans, huge illegal guarantees, and huge amounts of money occupied by major shareholders. In the first quarter of 2007, it reported a loss of 70 million yuan, and the net assets per share was negative 4.17 yuan. The company entered bankruptcy proceedings, and due to the complicated equity transactions, no "buyer" could be found.It is such a company, because "it is facing bankruptcy, and the mysterious buyer has not yet been determined, and there is a lot of room for imagination", so it has attracted the attention of speculators.From April to May, *ST Baoshuo issued 3 bankruptcy risk warning announcements in a row, but in response to them, the company's stock price continued to rise by 14 daily limits, which made people baffled. If the frenzy of the stock market has reached the point of madness, then the legend of wealth in the real estate market is speechless. This year, housing prices across the country continued their upward trend from the previous year, and many cities have doubled, or even doubled or tripled.At the beginning of the year, the transaction price of second-hand housing in downtown Beijing ranged from 7,000 to 10,000 yuan per square meter. By October, it had risen to 16,000 to 30,000 yuan per square meter. In April, CCTV's "News Investigation" disclosed the truth about the high price of a real estate in Shanghai: the real cost was about 6,000 yuan/square meter, and the price had already been raised to 18,000 yuan/square meter when the developer finally sold it to consumers.On the opening day, consumers lined up overnight to get their numbers. In August, a piece of land in downtown Hangzhou was auctioned at a high price, and the floor price reached 15,700 yuan per square meter.On the second day after the news was released, a real estate priced at 15,000 yuan per square meter on the side of the plot immediately jumped and raised the price by 6,000 yuan.The housing prices are so crazy that even the developers who are earning soft money are a little "embarrassed". At the beginning of the year, a real estate company in Shenzhen launched more than 160 villas, and more than 600 people rushed to buy them after hearing the news. A luxury house worth nearly 10 million yuan was sold every two to three minutes. set.The developer told the reporter of Southern Weekly, "Now the profit margin of real estate is so high that we are embarrassed." On October 1, the US "Forbes" Asian edition announced the 2007 "China Rich List", a strange and young 26-year-old woman became the new richest man in China.This Guangdong girl named Yang Huiyan is the daughter of Yang Guoqiang, the founder of Guangdong Country Garden. Her personal net worth is as high as 16 billion US dollars, so she has created three records: China's first rich man with assets exceeding 100 billion yuan, and the first under 30 years old She became the richest man in the country and the richest woman in Asia.People still remember that the richest man in 2005 was Chen Tianqiao of Shanda Games, with a net worth of 9 billion yuan. In just two years, the bar for the richest man has increased by more than ten times. Entrepreneurs are eclipsed. On this list, the top four are all big real estate developers, namely Yang Huiyan (Country Garden), Xu Rongmao (Shimao Group), Guo Guangchang (Fosun International) and Zhang Li (R&F Group), and 39 of the top 100 are engaged in real estate industry.In the "Forbes" US 400 Rich List released earlier, 6 of the top ten are from the IT and Internet industries. In comparison, this is a rather ironic list.A reporter from Xinhua News Agency wrote in a comment titled "Forbes List Reveals Real Estate Profits", "The development and prosperity of China's private economy did not start from real estate development, but from processing and manufacturing. Why can't the manufacturing industry produce many rich people? Obviously It’s still a matter of industry profitability.” The founder of Country Garden is Yang Guoqiang, a native of Beizhen, Shunde District, Guangzhou City, who was born in 1955. He grew up in a poor family. It is said that he did not wear shoes until the age of 17. In his early years, he used to herd cattle, farm, work as a plasterer and construction contractor.He is usually very low-key, almost insulated from the media, and he is also taciturn when he appears in public, and he always wears a suit that is one size bigger.There are also media records that he likes to take off his shoes and sit cross-legged during meetings.He was one of the first batch of private entrepreneurs to set foot in the real estate industry. He developed the Shunde Country Garden real estate in 1992, and has developed in the Pearl River Delta for many years since then.Country Garden is a typical family business. Among the company's nine executive directors, eight are members of the Yang family, and the only non-blood member is the company's president Cui Jianbo.This person used to be the mayor of Beizhen, Shunde District, Yang Guoqiang's hometown for several years. It is said that he "firmly supported and helped Yang Guoqiang's career development." In 2005, Yang Guoqiang transferred his shares to his second daughter, Yang Huiyan, who was born in 1981. On April 20, 2007, Country Garden was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. According to the market value of the shares held, Yang Huiyan became the new richest man in China. After being listed, Country Garden became the real estate company with the highest market value in China. In the previous real estate industry, Country Garden was not the most prominent in terms of development scale and popularity, and its financial pressure was also very huge.The company's chief financial officer once said that by the end of 2006, the company had a debt of RMB 4 billion, and the ratio of net debt to equity was 160.1%.However, despite this, its listing has been enthusiastically sought after, the most important reason being that it is the largest "landlord" in the country.According to the "China Business Daily" report, by mid-August, Country Garden's land reserves had reached 54 million square meters, equivalent to the size of a medium-sized city.Country Garden has always been most proud of its low land prices. It declared in its listing prospectus, "We are one of the real estate developers in China with the largest and low-cost land reserves. These reserves provide for our future growth and development. Profitability provides strong support." UBS, Country Garden's listing sponsor, also mentioned in the report that the minimum cost of land acquired by Country Garden is only 25 yuan per square meter.According to media reports, the land price for Phase I of Phoenix City, a project in Zengcheng, Guangzhou, is as low as 30,000 yuan per mu, while the land price for South China Country Garden is 68,000 yuan per mu.The company's prospectus shows that in the past three years, Country Garden's annual turnover has grown at a compound rate of 56.5%, while its net profit has grown at an astonishing 141.1%. Another important factor for the huge profits in the real estate industry is that there is an evil "gray industrial chain" in this industry. On June 25, the "Market News" under the "People's Daily" published a report saying, "Forty percent of the profits have been eaten by functional departments." According to a real estate developer surnamed Jiang, "I have been engaged in commercial housing since 1992. Construction industry. At that time, the construction cost price per square meter was only 350-400 yuan, and the house price was only 1000-1500 yuan/square meter. The construction cost accounted for 1/4 of the house price. 1/3~1/2. Now the construction cost has only increased by 100-200 yuan compared with the original, but the house price has doubled several times, and the housing cost only accounts for less than 20% of the house price.” Almost all real estate developers have declared that the biggest reason for "rising prices" is the rise in land prices and development costs.According to the developer, in fact, land "bidding, auction and listing" did not increase housing costs, and "black-box operations" became the main channel for real estate developers to reduce costs. "Bidding, auction and listing" projects are generally divided into three situations. One is a smaller scale project.During the bidding process, developers can learn about the government's "bottom line" and "upper limit" of land prices through "internal channels", and form a "price alliance" with peers who may participate.After being auctioned by one company, other companies jointly build the project, but the real estate sales price is raised by referring to the surrounding real estate prices. One is a project involving hundreds of acres of land.The development of contiguous land requires collective "bidding" to control the land. Developers often do the "work" of the evaluation department and the bidding review committee in advance, and crowd out some External competitors reduce potential cost risks by suppressing rivals and reducing competitive pressure. There is also a practice of obtaining "wind" from the planning department and preemptively "enclosing land" in future prime locations.For example, on the eve of the relocation of the government and the introduction of urban development plans, the decision-makers of local governments, especially the "top leaders" have the goal of urban development, which has become the news that developers are flocking to. Whenever there is trouble, real estate developers will "race horses to enclose land" overnight. Because land prices are the cheapest at this time.In order to obtain this information and "get it done" with these functional departments, it is necessary to "drink everyone with wine" and take part of the profits from real estate development to "share" with departments including evaluation, planning, auction, and land.The developer said to the reporter, "I have carefully calculated such an account: after a real estate is developed, the cost only accounts for 20% of the house price, the developer's profit accounts for 40% of the house price, and the other 40% is Swallowed up by all kinds of 'grey overhead'." The phenomenon of indulgence and sudden wealth in real estate has become an important manifestation of the sickness of Chinese society.The "Ban Yue Tan" magazine published by Xinhua News Agency commented that "in the process of building a harmonious society, real estate developers have played a role in increasing discordant factors." "Home" reporter said, "The sudden wealth of real estate developers has had a great impact on the work ethics of the whole society. In the past, when you managed a large factory, how to raise funds, find markets, and manage workers, you thought it was great and hard work. There is a certain relationship between return and dedication. However, real estate developers seem to be different. Is there a certain relationship between their success and dedication? If not, can our work attitude still be maintained? Therefore, speculation has become the biggest social impact Values. We're all confused." In September, the "Exhibition of Punishment and Prevention of Duty Crimes" sponsored by the Supreme People's Procuratorate was unveiled in Beijing.According to statistics, since the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (2002), the central government has investigated and dealt with 16 seriously corrupt officials at or above the provincial and ministerial levels, and 10 of them were dragged into the water by illegal real estate developers, and went nowhere, leading to ruin.The phenomenon of super-rich people in China's real estate industry is very special.J. B. DeLong, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, recorded in "The Wealthy Tycoon": In 1990, there were 22 billionaires in the United States.Among them, 14 made their fortunes by building railways or financing the construction of railways, while only one made their fortunes by real estate. In 1957, among the 16 richest billionaires in the United States, the real estate developer was still 1. In 1996, there were 132 millionaires with more than US$1 billion. Electronics, software, finance, etc. became the leading industries for the birth of rich people, and there were 4 real estate developers.Obviously, in the past 100 years, the proportion of American rich people who got rich overnight due to real estate has never exceeded 5% among the contemporaries, and the first 50 years of these 100 years are the heyday of American real estate. The unprecedented prosperity of the stock market and real estate market means that the Chinese economy, which has been on the "highway" for more than 20 years, has entered a cycle of acceleration, which brings multiple social scenes: the redistribution of national and personal wealth , the unprecedented expansion and activity of the middle class, the distortion of the speculative mentality of the whole people, the expansion of the market value of Chinese companies, and the intensification of macro-control bubbles, etc.In the past 30 years, 2007 was the year when social capital crime was most active and wealth distribution phenomenon was most obvious. The violent heat wave in the stock market and real estate market has attracted almost everyone's attention.However, we still have to leave some pen and ink for entrepreneurs in the industrial world.After more than 20 years of growth, they are all walking in the "plateau area lacking oxygen". All the opponents are foreign faces, but their own experience seems to be outdated. TCL's Li Dongsheng is in a tough battle. In 2005, he vowed to realize the profit of mergers and acquisitions within 18 months, but the fact is that every restructuring plan has unfortunately run aground.In the past few years, he has tried almost all the tricks, and even appeared in front of the counter of the mall wearing a ribbon to promote to consumers in person like more than ten years ago.The shape-conscious southerner can sometimes be unshaven and languid, but anyone can tell he's trying to maintain his dignity. In June 2006, he wrote an article "The Rebirth of the Eagle".He writes, "The eagle is the longest-lived bird in the world. It can live up to 70 years in its lifetime. To live that long, it must make difficult but important decisions as it ages at 40 years old. The eagle first Hit the rock with its beak until it falls off completely, and then wait quietly for a new beak to grow. The eagle will use the newly grown beak to pull out the old toenails on the claws one by one, and the blood will drip down. When the new toenails grow out, the eagle uses the new toenails to pluck out the feathers one by one. After five months, the new feathers grow back, and the eagle starts to fly again, and lives again for 30 years. "This description is undoubtedly tragic. In 2006, TCL's net loss was as high as 1.84 billion yuan. The stock wore the "ST" hat and faced a delisting crisis. The Chinese version of "Forbes" also rated him as "China's listed company One of the worst bosses". In May 2007, Li Dongsheng had to close the European factories and announced that he would shift his focus back to the Chinese market.All the people looked at Li Dongsheng curiously, would he be the reborn eagle? Compared with TCL, Lenovo's acquisition of IBM's computer business has progressed much more smoothly. However, Liu Chuanzhi's worries seem to be equally serious.In September of this year, he announced that since the end of 2004, the business of the new company has gradually been on the right track. The turnover has increased from 2.9 billion US dollars before the merger to 14.6 billion US dollars in 2006, and the sales volume has increased from 4.18 million units to 16.62 million units. 10,000 units, Lenovo began to downplay the IBM brand, and independently use the Lenovo Think Pad brand.Liu Chuanzhi said that for decades, Chinese companies have been learning "recipes" from Western managers, and now they should do research while doing it, and they should also be able to create "recipes."He revealed a certain anxiety of Chinese entrepreneurs: As one of the most important business countries in the world, China still does not have its own management thinking and business culture, what a shame it would be. Haier's Zhang Ruimin is not easy either.After several price wars in China's home appliance industry, profits have become "as thin as a blade", with a profit margin of only 2%-3%, and an industry-wide sales revenue growth of only about 3%.Therefore, in Zhang Ruimin's view, the only way out is to achieve a global layout and high growth with high added value. In June 2005, Haier tried to acquire Maytag, the third largest home appliance company in the United States, with a bid of US$1.28 billion.At the last moment of the merger, Whirlpool, the world's largest white goods company, disrupted the situation, and Haier announced its withdrawal from the bidding.In an interview in 2007, Zhang Ruimin said that although Haier is already the number one white goods manufacturer in China and the fourth largest in the world, and its international competitiveness continues to rise, it does not mean that the gap with multinational companies is narrowing.On the contrary, with the merger of Whirlpool and Maytag, the scale increased to 19 billion US dollars, and Haier was once again distanced.这位在30年企业史中最具管理思想的企业家说，“海尔目前正处于一个高原区，身处海拔5000米，但我们的目标是8000米，因为对手都在珠穆朗玛峰上，不仅路还很长，最后能否上去都是问题。正是因为国外对手非常强大，我们原来的有效办法可能都不行了。海尔发力于全球布局，这是一场生死之战，海尔要么通过全球化战略而真正地上去，要么就被人家淘汰。” 华为的任正非在这年迎来了创业20周年，跟过去的很多时候一样，他仍然表现得忧心忡忡。他透露说，华为在过去每年坚持投入销售收入的10％以上用于研发，尤其是最近几年，有超过2.5万名员工从事研发工作，资金投入都维持在每年七八十亿元以上，经过多年艰苦奋斗，至今为止，华为没有一项原创性的产品发明。更让任正非担心的是，他的全球头号劲敌美国思科已经把战火烧到了家门口。年底，思科创始人钱伯斯造访中国，宣布将在今后5年内投资中国160亿美元。这又将是一场怎样的鏖战？ 7月8日，对于老资格的民营企业家鲁冠球来说，是一个很特别的日子。这一天是他创业的第38个纪念日，同时，他创办的万向集团宣布成为美国AI公司的第一大股东，万向的海外业务规模首次超过了国内业务，这意味着当年的修车铺变成了真正意义上的跨国公司。AI是一家很独特的公司，它由三大汽车制造商克莱斯勒、福特和通用发起，是专门为这三大公司提供模块装配及物流管理的公司。万向集团作为中国最大的汽车配件生产商能够成为AI的大股东，意味着中国企业开始以资本并购和专业参与的方式，直接“嵌入”全球汽车产业链的核心部位。在鲁冠球位于萧山乡镇的家中，还一直悬挂着那幅汽车的图片，他的“造车梦”到何时会真正实现？ 美国20世纪初期的传奇企业家洛克菲勒晚年对友人说：“也许以后别人的资产比我还多，但我是唯一的。”这句话，鲁冠球、柳传志和张瑞敏等人也应该有资格说，因为他们所经历的转型大时代是唯一的。他们起身最早，活得最久，事业做得生龙活虎。然而，商业又是一个用结果来检验过程的冒险游戏，他们必须更长久地活下去。“那些没有消灭你的东西，会使你变得更强壮。”德国哲学家尼采的名言应该可以成为这些企业家共同的生存格言。 8月11日下午3时许，佛山市利达玩具有限公司副董事长、港商张树鸿在自己工厂的三楼仓库内上吊自杀，尸体旁边堆着十多包形态可爱的芝麻街布娃娃玩偶。自杀前，张树鸿在厂区内巡视一圈，并将工人工资悉数结清。他从1993年起自香港到佛山办厂，被员工描述为一个厚道人，个子很高，接近一米八的样子，也很壮实，但皮肤很黑，穿衣服很不讲究，平时总穿一身很旧的休闲服。他对员工很体贴，曾自己贴钱给员工供楼，许多人也因此跟着他一干就是十几年。这个玩具商的意外死亡，让“中国制造”的话题再度跳上国内外重要财经媒体的头版。 张树鸿之死起因于9天前。8月2日，美国最大玩具商美泰公司向美国消费品安全委员会提出召回佛山利达生产的96.7万件塑胶玩具，理由是“回收的这批玩具表漆含铅量超标，对儿童的脑部发展会造成很大影响，美国环保组织塞拉俱乐部认为危及儿童安全”。事发前，佛山利达的产量已居佛山玩具制造业第二。一夜之间，这家拥有十多年良好生产记录的合资企业成为众矢之的。在美国舆论的不断声讨下，玩具厂商及其上下游供应、检验链上的疏忽被一一曝光和放大。最终，佛山利达被出入境检验检疫部门要求整改，国家质量监督管理总局宣布暂停其产品出口。利达被迫停产，2500名工人几乎无事可做，张树鸿承受巨大压力，最终一死了之。张树鸿死后3日，美泰第二次宣布，召回的中国产玩具数量增加到1820万件。 在利达事件发生前后，“中国制造”正遭遇到一场酝酿已久的信任危机。3月18日，总部位于加拿大的宠物食品公司Menu Foods发布“召回声明”，因其原料涉嫌污染导致猫狗宠物死亡，该公司将对旗下八十多个品牌的宠物食品进行紧急召回。所有这些食品都是罐头包装或者锡箔纸袋包装，数量约为6000万，美国食品与药品管理局的调查认为，涉嫌污染的产品使用了从中国进口的小麦蛋白粉和大米蛋白粉，其中含有三聚氰胺和三聚氰酸。5月初，巴拿马和多米尼加共和国宣布在中国产牙膏中查出含有二甘醇，因而决定停售中国产牙膏，随后美国、新加坡和日本等国家相继作出停用、停售中国产牙膏的决定。6月11日，美国一家轮胎经销公司FTS宣布召回45万条由中国橡胶公司生产的一批轻卡汽车轮胎。据美国国家公路交通安全管理局（NHTSA）的调查，上年8月，一辆载有4名乘客的货车在宾夕法罗亚州失控撞毁，其中两名乘客丧生，事故原因是该车使用的中国产轮胎面脱层。同月，美国食品与药品管理层对来自中国的5种水产品实行自动扣留，并拒绝其入境，称其含有未经批准的兽药残留。美国消费品安全委员会宣布在全球范围被收回150万台中国生产的玩具火车，称其油漆中含有可导致儿童中毒的金属铅。 这些层出不穷的安全事件让中国商品信誉遭到重大挫伤。一些针对“中国制造”的攻击性言论和行动甚嚣尘上，两年前那个宣布“一年内不使用中国商品”的美国路易斯安那州新闻记者莎丽·邦加妮在这时候出版了《没有“中国制造”的一年》一书。英国《金融时报》评论员乔纳森伯查尔写道：“书中有大量表达不满的潜台词，这意味着在中国崛起的问题上，本书可能成为表明公众忧虑的又一个指标。”对“中国制造”的谴责成为某些政治人物随手拈来的“工具”，美国佛罗里达州棕榈湾市市长马齐奥梯甚至发布命令，该市政府不得购买价值50美元以上的中国商品，或一半以上部件为中国制造的商品。The small city of 107,000 residents became the first in the nation to ban goods from a certain country.正是在这种汹涌的抵制风潮中，玩具商之死把矛盾推到了顶点。对中国商品的谩骂或侮辱式的指责似乎已经不需要理由，这是当今商业世界最诡异的事件之一：谁也离不开“中国制造”，可是每个人都在表达着对它的不满。 Raymond Malled, chief correspondent for the Financial Times in Beijing, described the Western world's ambivalence: "On the one hand, Western consumers are reaping huge benefits, and on the other hand, Westerners complain loudly that cheap Chinese goods are costing locals jobs. Let China get unquestionable benefits." 张树鸿死后，玩具召回事件在质量责任人的确定上居然出现了戏剧性的反复。在一开始，美泰公司俨然一副受害者的姿态，公司首席执行官罗伯特埃克尔特在向美国参议院作证时认定，事故责任完全在于中国承包商。他说：“有人对不起我们，造成我们对不起你们。”然而，中国商务部却在调查中发现，美方宣布召回的玩具绝大部分不是因为制造质量的问题，而是美方标准的突然改变以及经销商的风险转嫁。商务部副部长高虎城介绍，美国玩具公司大规模召回涉及的2100万件玩具当中分为两类情况：一类是属于所用的涂料和油漆含铅超标的问题，这一类大概有300万件，占整体召回数量的14%。造成铅含量超标的原因，既有中方厂家在生产管理中的漏洞，也有品牌经销商在验收环节中的缺陷。第二种情况则是，美方经销商的风险转嫁。2007年5月，美国材料测试协会公布了一项针对玩具材料使用的新标准，中方制造商生产的1820万件玩具是根据之前的出口标准生产的，美方经销商以不符合新标准为理由召回玩具，全部风险及损失则由中方承担。 这一调查结果的出现，让国内舆论再度哗然，“中国制造”在全球产业链中的被动和被欺压现状毕现无遗。9月21日，在巨大的舆论压力下，美泰公司为玩具召回事件向中方致歉，并表示所召回的玩具绝大部分是由于美方设计缺陷所致，而不是中国制造商的问题。美泰在声明中表示，“愿意承担这些召回事件的全部责任，并亲自向中国人民和所有收到我们玩具的顾客道歉。” 玩具风波的一波三折及发生在这一年的众多事件表明，发力于1998年前后的“中国制造”在历经10年的黄金成长期后，已经走到一个十分敏感的十字路口。至少有两个事实让未来的“中国制造”充满变数。 一是中国制造商已不堪国际渠道商的压榨。在过去很多年里，低廉的中国商品为全球商品的物价平抑提供了巨大支撑，而流通大公司成为其中最大的得益者，它们与中国制造工厂的利益战愈演愈烈。在绍兴、温州等地的工厂，人们看到这样的景象，在一条生产线上悬挂着不同的商标，有些是显赫的国际品牌，有些是国内制造商的品牌，尽管它们都从同样的生产线上被制造出来，但是贴上不同的商标后，身价就会有一倍甚至数倍的差别。品牌的力量在这些车间里展现得残酷而让人感慨，而制造工厂却很少从这种差异中获得利益。一位温州皮鞋工厂的总裁诉苦说：“中国皮鞋的出口目前完全受制于欧美几家大的渠道商，它们对付我们的唯一办法是压价、压价和不断的压价。一双皮鞋，它们只肯给5美元的价格，我们如果要求再高1美分，它们马上就转身到别的工厂去了。那么，制造5美元一双的皮鞋，我们会用怎样的皮料？进行怎样的节约？不就是可以想象的事情了吗？你能够指望用5美元做出来的皮鞋会是质量一等的吗？况且，随着人民币的持续升值，中国皮鞋厂家的出口生意已经成了一块鸡肋业务。”7月，中国最大的袜业制造企业浪莎集团宣布，月底交完最后一批货后，不再接受沃尔玛的订单。The company provides Wal-Mart with $5 million in goods every year, but because the profit is too thin, it finally chose to give up.由国际品牌商品和渠道商控制的舆论，似乎一直在强化对中国制造的矮化和诋毁。 2007年4月，《环球奢侈品报告》中文版宣称，它通过调查发现，有86%的中国消费者因为奢侈品标有“Made in China”字样而不愿意继续购买，对于信仰顶级奢侈品的消费者来说，“中国制造”已成为炫耀式消费的障碍之一。这份报告说，“目前的状况是谁承认在中国设厂生产，谁就会被踢出奢侈品这个圈子。” 二是由于人民币升值及国内通货膨胀的压力，“中国制造”的价格优势第一次出现递减迹象。 7月，中国的消费价格指数比上年同期增长了5.6%，这是十多年来最急剧的增长。食品价格猛涨15.4%，由于农业区家畜暴发疫情以及严重的洪水，单是肉类和禽类价格就涨了45%。而且通胀不仅仅是国内问题，由于中国是世界上很多产品的供应国，中国的成本提高会体现在全世界沃尔玛及其他大零售商的货架上。In the first half of 2007, prices of imports from China rose 4.1 percent, the Commerce Department said.That was the fastest increase since the U.S. began tracking prices of Chinese imports in 2003, and well above the 2 percent U.S. inflation rate.上半年，中国出口彩电2255万台，比上年同期下降48％，其原因除了人民币升值、上游原材料成本上涨等因素外，还受到国外专利费上调的制约——由于中国企业欠缺核心专利技术，每出口一台电视机，需缴纳10美元左右的专利费。 《时代周刊》在10月底的报道中分析说：“一些人在警告，低价中国产品帮助全世界维持异乎寻常稳定的物价的时代已经结束了。”美联储前主席格林斯潘也在接受访问时认为，“中国出口商品价格已经开始上涨，这将促进全球通胀的复苏。”苏格兰皇家银行的中国战略家本·辛芬德费尔则说得很简洁：“在过去10年，中国是通缩势力，在未来10年，它将是通胀势力。” 就这样，关于“中国制造”的话题还将持续。一只亚马孙河流域热带雨林中的蝴蝶，偶尔扇动几下翅膀，两周后，可能在美国得克萨斯州引起一场龙卷风。这样的“蝴蝶效应”正发生在中国与世界之间，而张树鸿就是一个无辜而悲情的受害者。 到2007年，连美国硅谷都已经诞生50周年了。还有几个人记得半个世纪前那家发明了集成电路的飞兆公司（Fairchild Semiconductor）创建了伟大的英特尔公司的诺伊斯已经去世多年，发明了“摩尔定律”的戈登·摩尔年近八旬，甚至连永远穿牛仔裤的乔布斯也都肚腩微现，人们崇拜的是更年轻的布林（Brin）与佩奇（Page），他们创办的Google如日中天。在硅谷创业的华人中，曾经跻身全美十大富豪的王安早就被遗忘，年过40的杨致远也好像过气了，最受欢迎的是1978年出生的台湾青年陈士骏。2005年2月，这位计算机天才跟硅谷的其他前辈一样在一个车库里创办了视频网站Youtube，20个月后，Google以16.5亿美元收购了他的公司。 这一年，互联网的光芒明显被狂热的股市和楼市所掩盖，那些动辄上千亿元的市值以及上百亿元的财富身家，让IT精英们有点失落。他们甚至开始有点后悔为什么非要在纳斯达克上市，搜狐的张朝阳便在年初说，他有点后悔到美国上市，“到美国上市是中国互联网的整体悲哀！为了收入、报表，我们整天忙短信、忙无线，整天忙，把网民给忘了。”不过，起得晚却赶上一个好集市的人也有，他就是阿里巴巴的马云，他的公司11月在香港上市，成为市值最高的中国互联网公司。 作为全球最大的电子商务公司，阿里巴巴为600万中小企业提供外贸交易的平台，它让无数不懂外语、没有出过国，甚至不知道任何国际贸易知识的中小商人找到了国际买家。在某种意义上，它是“中国制造”最重要的推动者之一。2004年，马云创办从事C2C业务的淘宝网，在两年时间内战胜全球最大的同业公司eBay易趣，取得了75％的市场份额。2005年，阿里巴巴成为陷入困境的雅虎中国的实际控制人，使得自己从一个技术应用型公司变成了掌握一流技术的公司。为了解决网络支付的信用难题，马云还创造性地发明了一种叫做“支付宝”的第三方支付工具。它以阿里巴巴为交易的担保中介，从而解决了资金欺诈的问题，也让自己间接地进入了金融服务领域。2007年的阿里巴巴看上去是一个体系庞大而面目不清的帝国，马云决定把已经实现盈利的电子商务项目拿出来，在香港联交所上市。马云显然选中了公司上市最为合算的时候。股市的结构性泡沫意味着公司股价的普遍高估，而阿里巴巴同时具有中国和互联网两大概念，在此时筹资，无疑会占到相当大的便宜。 尽管如此，阿里巴巴上市的火爆景象还是让人吃惊。对于投资者来说，它最大的魅力是无穷的想象空间，阿里巴巴的股票遭到“哄抢”，中国台湾最大企业鸿海的郭台铭、美国思科的钱伯斯等都成为第一批投资人。在国际配售部分，阿里巴巴获得了1800亿美元的认购，相当于186倍的超额认购，在散户公开认购部分，冻结资金4500亿港元，超额认购逾259倍，打破了港股发行的历史纪录。其疯狂景象连《经济学人》杂志都开始提问：“阿里巴巴是否是中国.com的泡沫？”在10月底的一则报道中，这家英国杂志认为，“该公司最大的财富也许是他的创始人马云，马云在公众眼中是个有魅力、善言辞并懂得利用媒体的人。他拥有大胆的想法，怀有巨大的市场目标，以及对商业的敏感，这都使他吸引了人们众多的眼球。”根据它的计算，如果阿里巴巴的融资目标实现，市值将达到90亿美元，相当于其每年利润的100倍。而出乎《经济学人》预料的是，狂热比它想象的还要大得多。11月6日，阿里巴巴挂牌上市，当日收盘较发行价上涨192%，创港股当年新股首日涨幅之最，市值达1996亿港元，竟相当于三大门户网站、盛大和携程五者市值之和，一跃成为中国互联网业首家市值超过200亿美元的公司。公司的市盈率达到了惊人地300倍，如果以2006年的业绩来比较，市盈率则近1000倍。阿里巴巴的市盈率之高超出所有专家的预测，同期市盈率比较，Google为43倍，eBay为23倍，百度为104倍，腾讯为74倍，新浪为33倍，网易为15倍。在全球互联网公司中，阿里巴巴的市值排在Google、eBay、雅虎、亚马逊之后，位例第五，前四者的市值依次为2220亿、474亿、418亿和357亿美元。 马云是一个语不惊人死不休的领导者，他在上市当日的高管会议上宣布，三年内，阿里巴巴要做市值1000亿美元的公司，成为全球前三大互联网公司。一位参会的高管说：“我当时就蒙了。”不过，回忆8年前他在杭州城郊那间漏水的住宅的宣示，谁敢说这位小个子的前英语教师不会再未来创造新的神话？ 阿里巴巴在香港的高调上市，为2007年的中国互联网世界涂上一道最浓烈的色彩，似乎宣告了一个新的“应用之年”的到来。在过去的15年里，互联网在中国从无到有，肆意生长，终于自成一体，并渗透到了经济生活的每一个细胞。尤其值得骄傲的是，在这个世界里，本土企业几乎在所有的领域都击败了各自的国际对手，这在其他行业是从来没有出现过的完胜场面，甚至连Google这样的公司都无法幸免，它在中国的市场占有率还不到竞争对手百度一半。另外一个很奇异的事实是，凡是被国际公司收购的企业都前景堪忧，搜索领域的3712被雅虎收购后不复存在，B2C领域的卓越被亚马逊收购后一度陷入低迷，C2C领域的易趣则在被eBay收购后遭到淘宝的重击。 更令人充满期待的是，在60年代出生的马云、张朝阳、李彦宏和70年代出生的丁磊、马化腾之后，“80后一代”已经鸣鼓而起——康盛世纪的戴志康（1981年）、PCPOP公司的李想（1981年）、MaJoy的茅侃侃（1983年）、畅网科技的陈曦（1981年）、海川传媒的高燃（1981年）、163888翻唱网的郑立（1982年）——那些括号里的出生年份仿佛是一个骄傲的宣告。 当这个国家开始改革开放的时候，他们还没有来到人世，现在却已经开始颠覆所有貌似强大的东西，这是天生的全球化的一代，是生来就与互联网“无缝对接”的一代。他们成长在一个开放的家庭和社会，没有经受过意识形态的煎熬，没有传统的羁绊与包袱，更没有产权制度的困扰，他们比所有的前辈商人都要幸运，他们看上去一个个前程远大。不过，他们即将面临的挑战和灾难也是前所未有的。他们的时代是最好的，也是最坏的。意大利思想家马基雅维利在五百多年前就告诫说，“追求梦想的人们啊，已经付出就要准备付出更多。”所有的商业故事其实都符合一条规律——就如同发生在这部企业史中的每一个悲喜故事那样——伟大都是煎熬出来的。 It is foreseeable that in the years to come, if China is to produce world-class great companies and Chinese entrepreneurs who have achieved worldwide reputation, the Internet may be one of the only fields. 9月，担任18年美联储主席、上一年刚过退休的格林斯潘出版了他的回忆录《动荡时代：新世界中的冒险》。这位81岁高龄的“金钱老人”将全球重要的大国进行了一一的评说。他称老牌的欧洲强国英国“英国会发展得好”，拥有雄厚能源储备的俄罗斯“应该彻底恢复法制以进一步发展”，在重工业及IT服务业表现抢眼的印度有“巨大潜力”，自1991年之后宏观持续低迷的日本则仍然保持着“强大的力量”，此外，他一改说话模棱两可的习惯，对美国和中国经济进行了一次清晰地对比，他对前者的未来表示了担忧，同时则预言后者将在2030年成为美国最主要的竞争者。他说，“中国如何进一步拥抱全球市场将决定全球经济的命运。” 斯潘的观点代表了西方的主流声音。的确在很多方面，与崛起的中国相比，美国的前途更为莫测。在国际事务上，它不但在伊拉克战争的泥潭中难以拔足，还与另一个中东大国伊朗的关系变得异常紧张。在国内，即将到来的2008年总统选举转移了所有人的注意力，一切政策都成为选举的工具。这年春天，一场金额危机突然降临。3月，全美第二大次级抵押贷款机构新世纪金融公司宣布濒临破产，从而引爆了空前的次级债危机，次级贷危机，指银行针对信用记录较差、正常情况下很难得到贷款的客户发放的、利率较高的房贷。前几年，美国楼市火热，很多按揭公司或银行为扩张业务，纷纷介入次级房贷业务。2006年之后，美国楼市低迷、利率不断升高，次级房贷借款人不能按时还款，次级房贷大比例地转化为坏账，因此诱发美国次级房贷危机。众多金融机构损失惨重。受其拖累，全球重要股市