余永定发声海外驳301报告：一份基于谣言和空想写成的报告
中国金融四十人论坛（CF40）学术顾问、中国社科院学部委员余永定近日在世界报业辛迪加（Project Syndicate）上发表文章，认为特朗普政府在301报告中有关中国“不公正的技术转让制度”、“歧视性的注册限制”、“针对高技术产业的对外投资”、“入侵美国的、商业计算机网络，窃取知识产权和商业机密”等指控都是站不住脚的。
余永定用一系列数据和事实论证了他的上述观点，并认为特朗普政府发布301调查报告的目的只是为了使其增加关税的决定看上去合理而已。
此前，在5月12日举行的第七届 “CF40-PIIE 中美经济学家学术交流会”和6月9日CF40和日本野村综研共同举办的第八次“中日金融圆桌研讨会”上，余永定均不同程度阐释过他的上述观点（复习传送门：美发布对华500亿征税清单！余永定：这是一场持久战&余永定：全面贸易战是否能避免？）。今天，中国金融四十人论坛（CF40）微信公号推送余永定的这篇最新文章供读者参考，中文译文附后。本文于2018年6月27日首发于Project Syndicate。
Trump’s Weak Case Against China
US President Donald Trump's administration has based its decision to impose trade tariffs on China, and risk a broadly catastrophic trade war, on a report that does not stand up to scrutiny. The decision, it seems clear, was made before the report was even written.
BEIJING – No one wins in a trade war. Yet US President Donald Trump seems determined to pursue one with China, which he accuses of causing America’s trade deficit, violating World Trade Organization rules, and using unfair practices to acquire foreign technology. While most economists marvel at Trump’s ignorance of how trade balances work, many broadly agree with his charges regarding intellectual property (IP). But the evidence supporting these claims is also weak, at best.
The so-called Section 301 trade investigation launched by Trump’s administration last year accused China of acquiring foreign technologies using discriminatory licensing restrictions, unfair technology-transfer agreements, targeted outbound investment, unauthorized intrusions into US commercial computer networks, and cyber-enabled IP theft. “The weight of the evidence,” the report concludes, shows that China uses foreign-ownership restrictions to force US companies to provide their technologies to Chinese entities.
But the case is not nearly as strong as the report makes it out to be. For starters, because Chinese firms are not starved for capital – thanks to China’s chronic savings glut – gaining access to foreign technologies is their main motivation for trying to attract direct investment from abroad. Under WTO rules, they are free to seek technology transfer from their foreign partners on a commercial and voluntary basis.
Fortunately for China, foreign firms have been more than willing to enter its market, not least because of its preferential treatment of direct investment. In fact, for decades, foreign and domestic firms alike have willingly accepted China’s “market access for technology” strategy, which required foreign investors to “import” advanced technology in exchange for entering the Chinese market.
Whatever downside they may see to this approach, the fact remains that foreign enterprises – including completely foreign-owned companies and foreign partners of Chinese firms – have benefited greatly from their investments in China. A 2006 World Bank report put the average rate of return for foreign multinationals in China at 22%. According to a report compiled by the Conference Board of World Enterprises, the average rate of return on capital for American multinationals in China in 2008 was 33%.
That said, the earnings before interest and taxes of foreign enterprises in China had been worsening since 2009, but in 2017 the situation improved. This is an issue that the Chinese government must take seriously. In any case, no one can claim that foreign companies were forced to operate in the Chinese market. The argument that US firms have been compelled to transfer their technology to China thus lacks significance.
In fact, that argument was never backed by persuasive evidence. While the US Trade Representative (USTR), which compiled the Section 301 report, claims to have conducted many surveys, all respondents are anonymous, and their assertions are little more than hearsay – nothing that would be admissible in a court of law. And, even if regarded as true, such claims would not definitively prove that forcing foreign enterprises to transfer their technology is prevalent in China.
The Section 301 report’s accusations regarding outbound investment – namely, that China uses “government capital and highly opaque investor networks to facilitate high-tech acquisitions abroad” – are similarly flimsy. The USTR assumes that China’s government not only has a clearly defined investment strategy, but also that an army of obedient firms is willingly carrying it out.
Yet the American Enterprise Institute reports that, from 2005 to 2016, Chinese companies have made just 202 investments, including mergers and acquisitions, in the US, only 16 of which – totaling $21 billion – were in technology sectors. Chinese investors spent far more than that – $94 billion – on real estate in the US in 2013 to 2016.
The sectoral distribution of Chinese firms’ outward investment indicates that there is not even an effective market mechanism at work driving Chinese firms to invest in a rational way. Instead, companies are making independent – and often irrational – investment decisions, which sometimes lead to large losses.
The final issue raised by the Section 301 report relates to cyber-enabled theft of IP and sensitive commercial information, which the US claims is carried out by the Chinese government. The report acknowledges that since 2015 – when China and the US agreed that neither would “conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information for commercial advantage” – the number of detected incidents of Chinese cyber-espionage has declined. Yet some US officials insist that this likely reflects a shift toward more centralized, practiced, and sophisticated attacks by a smaller number of actors.
The truth is that China has been making steady progress in its protection of property rights. As Nicholas Lardy of the Peterson Institute of International Economics points out, “China’s payments of licensing fees and royalties for the use of foreign technology have soared in recent years, reaching almost $30 billion last year, nearly a four-fold increase over the last decade.” In fact, Lardy continues, “China probably ranks second globally in the magnitude of licensing fees paid for technology used within national borders.”
The Section 301 report was, it seems clear, based on rumor, imagination, and half-truth. The obvious question is how the Trump administration can base a policy decision as consequential as trade tariffs – which could trigger a catastrophic trade war – on such weak evidence. The obvious answer is that the report was intended to justify, rather than inform, the policy.
This is not to say that the issues raised by the Section 301 report are mere fantasy, or that China’s fulfillment of its WTO commitments has been impeccable. On the contrary, China has plenty of room to improve its WTO compliance, especially when it comes to opening up its financial-services sector and strengthening IP protections.
But trade-related issues should be addressed within the WTO framework, with the US using that body’s resolution mechanisms to address its grievances. In lieu of such an approach by the Trump administration, China should consider launching a new round of WTO negotiations in cooperation with Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Mexico, and New Zealand. Multilateralism should be preserved, with or without the US.
Trump’s trade war will not succeed in driving China to abandon its aspiration to catch up to the advanced economies. China is ready to fight a war of attrition. Unfortunately, both sides – as well as the rest of the world – will incur heavy losses in the process.
中文译文：
（未经作者审核，仅供参考，来源微信公号“经济学家圈”）
在贸易战中没有谁是赢家，然而美国总统特朗普似乎决心要与中国大战一场。他指责中国给美国带来贸易逆差，违反WTO规则，并利用不公平手段获取外国技术。尽管大多数经济学家都对特朗普在贸易平衡方面的无知惊讶不已，但其中许多人也普遍赞同他在知识产权方面的指控。但其实支撑这些说法的证据再怎么说都很薄弱。
特朗普政府去年发起的所谓301贸易调查指控中国利用歧视性许可限制，不公平的技术转让协议，有针对性的境外投资，未经授权入侵美国商业计算机网络以及网络知识产权盗窃等手段来获取国外技术。报告总结说有“大量证据表明”中国利用一系列对外资所有权的限制迫使美国公司向中国实体提供技术。
但情况可没有报告所说的那么斩钉截铁。首先，由于中国长期储蓄过剩，中国企业都不太缺乏资本，而获得外国技术则是他们试图吸引海外直接投资的主要动机。根据WTO规则，它们可以在符合商业规则和双方自愿的基础上随时随地向外国合作伙伴寻求技术转让。
而中国的幸运之处在于外国企业都热衷于进入这个市场，尤其是基于其对直接投资的优惠待遇。事实上几十年来中国的国内外企业都乐意接受这一“技术的市场准入”策略，让外国投资者“引进”先进技术以进入中国市场。
不管外界认为这种做法有什么不利因素，事实正是那些外国企业——包括那些纯外资企业和中国企业的国外合作伙伴——从自身对华投资中受益匪浅。世界银行2006年发布的一份报告显示境外跨国企业在中国的平均投资回报率为22％。而根据世界企业联合会的报告，2008年美国跨国企业在华平均资本回报率达到了33％。
而虽然自2009年以来外国企业在中国的息前税前收入一直在下降，但在去年情况已经有所好转。这是一个中国政府必须认真对待的问题。无论如何，没有人可以声称诸多外国企业是被迫在中国市场经营的。因此所谓美国企业被迫将技术转移到中国的论点也缺乏说服力。
事实上，这个论点从未得到有说服力的证据的支持。虽然编纂这份301条款报告的美国贸易代表声称进行了多项调查，但所有答复者都是匿名的，而这些人的主张也跟道听途说没什么两样——没有什么可以经得起法庭的质证。即使这些说法被视为真实的，也不能明确证明外国企业被迫转让技术的情形在中国普遍存在。
301部分报告对中国境外投资的指责——即中国利用“政府资本和高度隐秘的投资者网络来促进对海外高科技企业的收购” ——也同样站不住脚。在美国贸易代表看来中国政府不仅有明确的投资战略，而且还有一大群企业愿意对其言听计从。
可是美国企业研究所的报告指出从2005到2016年间中国企业在美国仅进行了包括合并和受购在内的202笔投资，其中只有16项——总共涉及210亿美元——是在科技领域。而在2013至2016年间中国投资者在美国的房地产投资额已经远远超过了这个数字，达到94亿美元。
中国企业对外投资的行业分布表明，甚至都还没有一个有效的市场机制去推动中国企业以合理的方式进行投资。相反各个企业都在做出独立且往往是非理性的投资决策，有时会招致巨大的损失。
301条款报告所提到的最后一个问题涉及对知识产权和敏感商业信息的网络盗窃——美国声称这是由中国政府执行的。尽管该报告承认自2015年中美国双方同意“不实施或故意支持对知识产权（包括贸易机密或其他可以带来商业优势的机密商业信息）的网络盗窃行为”之后监测到的中国网络间谍活动案件有所减少，但一些美国官员坚持认为这可能反映出攻击者数量减少并同时转向更集中、熟练且复杂的攻击。
而事实是中国在保护财产权方面取得了稳步进展。正如彼得森国际经济研究所的尼古拉斯·拉迪（Nicholas Lardy）所指出的那样，“近年来中国支付的外国技术许可费和使用费大幅飙升，去年达到近300亿美元，比过去十年增长近四倍。”拉迪继续补充说“事实上中国针对在本国范围内使用的技术所支付的许可费金额大概在全球排名第二。“
这就表明301条款报告似乎都基于一些谣言，想象以及半真半假的陈述。因此显而易见的问题就是特朗普政府怎么可以依据这堆站不住脚的证据去制定一项增加关税这样后患无穷的政策决定——这可能会引发灾难性的贸易战。而对此显而易见的答案则是报告的目的只不过是为了证明而非辅助这一政策决定。
这并不是说该报告所提出的问题都是些幻想，或者说中国对入世承诺的履行是无可挑剔的。相反中国依然存在很大的空间来改善其WTO合规性，特别是在开放金融服务业和加强知识产权保护方面。
但与贸易相关的问题应在WTO框架内解决，美国应利用该机构的解决机制解决其不满。为取代特朗普政府的这种做法，中国应该考虑与澳大利亚、加拿大、欧盟、日本、墨西哥和新西兰合作考虑与特朗普政府开展新一轮WTO谈判。无论有没有美国参与，多边主义都应该被保留。
特朗普的贸易战无法迫使中国放弃追赶发达经济体的愿望。中国也已经准备去打一场消耗战。不幸的是，双方——以及世界其他地方——都将在此过程中蒙受重大损失。
近期文章精选：
美国这次加征关税对中国经济影响有多大？这是我们的定量分析结果