日本商社获益于中国增长

Buy a take-out chicken dinner in Los Angeles or an onigiri rice ball from a convenience store in Tokyo, and there is a good chance the plastic bag it comes in will have been made in China.

无论是在洛杉矶叫一份鸡肉餐外卖，还是在东京的便利店买一份饭团，装食物的塑料袋都很有可能产自中国。

Just as likely, the bag's journey to the checkout counter from its birthplace in a Middle Eastern oil patch will have been shepherded by a Japanese trading company, Mitsubishi.

同样有可能的是，塑料袋从中东某油田的诞生地长途跋涉到收银台的旅程，是在日本贸易公司三菱(Mitsubishi)的操作下完成的。

Mitsubishi's five-year-old plastic bag business – a tiny part of its huge trading and investment empire – is an example of how China is playing a more central role in the operations of some of Japan's biggest companies, the sogo shosha, or general trading companies.

三菱的塑料袋业务已开展了5年，在这个庞大的贸易和投资帝国中，这块业务微不足道。但此项业务证明了中国是如何在日本一些最大公司——即综合性贸易商社(sogo shosha)——的运作中，扮演着越来越重要的角色。

Shosha such as Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo and Marubeni have been among the biggest beneficiaries of China's rise. Having built their businesses supplying resource-poor Japan with raw materials, in the 1990s they switched from simple fee-based trading to investing, taking stakes in everything from Siberian gas fields to Australian iron ore mines.

在中国崛起的最大受益者中，包括了三菱、三井(Mitsui)、住友(Sumitomo)和丸红(Marubeni)等综合商社。它们通过为资源匮乏的日本提供原材料而扩张了业务，其后在上世纪90年代，从单纯收取酬金的贸易转向了投资，从西伯利亚的气田到澳大利亚的铁矿，到处都有它们的股份。

The timing was perfect. When roaring Chinese demand lifted commodities prices a few years later, the shosha booked windfall profits.

它们的时机选择非常完美。数年后，当中国需求激增推高大宗商品价格时，这些商社都录得了高额利润。

Their traditional import-export businesses flourished too. Shosha brokered sales of Japanese capital goods to China – from factory equipment to power plants to bullet trains – and arranged imports of Chinese processed food and clothing to Japan.

它们传统的进出口业务也兴旺起来。这些商社安排日本的资本货物销往中国——从工厂设备、发电厂到高速火车——并安排中国的加工食品和服装进口到日本。

“China is the only country that we dedicate a separate office to managing. That shows you how important it is to our business,” says Shohei Hino of Mitsubishi's China unit.

三菱中国业务的Shohei Hino表示：“中国是我们唯一单独设立办事处进行管理的国家。这说明了它对我们的业务有多么重要。”

Today the shosha are looking at new ways to take advantage of China's growth by increasing their direct investments in the country.

如今，各商社正寻找新的途径，通过加大在华直接投资，从中国的增长中获益。

The enterprises that are taking shape as a result are often more “foreign” and complex than anything they have tried before – taking the companies well beyond their roots in Japan.

由此形成的企业，往往比它们之前尝试过的任何形式都更加“外国”和复杂——使这些公司远远超越了其本土“根源”的范畴。

Take the plastic bags. Mitsubishi exports polyethylene sheets to China from Sharq, a Saudi Arabian petrochemical company in which it owns a minority stake.

以塑料袋为例。三菱从沙特阿拉伯的石化公司Sharq（三菱拥有其少数股份）向中国出口聚乙烯薄膜。

Once in China, the sheets are turned into bags by a Mitsubishi-affiliated manufacturing company, before being shipped to KFC chicken outlets and Lawson convenience stores – also part-owned by Mitsubishi – in the US and Japan.

到了中国，这些薄膜就被一家三菱旗下的制造公司加工成塑料袋，再运往美国和日本的肯德基(KFC)门店和罗森(Lawson)便利店——三菱同样拥有这两家公司的部分股权。

Another big Japanese trading group, Itochu, has been an active investor in China's domestic food market.

另一家日本大型贸易集团伊藤忠(Itochu)也是中国国内食品市场上活跃的投资者。

In 2008 it paid $710m for a 20 per cent stake in Ting Hsin, a big food processing group. That followed a deal with Cofco, China's state-owned food processor, to buy grain and other agricultural commodities in global markets, an effort to build pricing power and combat rising food costs.

2008年，伊藤忠以7.1亿美元购得大型食品加工集团顶新(Ting Hsin) 20%的股份。随后，又与中国国有食品加工企业中粮集团(Cofco)达成协议，在全球市场上采购谷物及其它农作物，以增强定价权，并应对食品价格的不断上涨。

Other traders are also targeting Chinese stomachs. Last year Marubeni agreed a soyabean-procurement deal with Sinograin, a state-owned grain importer, and has invested in a bakery in Shanghai that makes bread using Marubeni-sourced wheat. It has moved into China's nascent wine industry as a co-investor with Asahi, the Japanese brewer, in a winery in Nantong.

其它贸易商也将目标瞄准了中国人的“胃”。去年，丸红与中国国有谷物进口企业——中国储备粮管理总公司(Sinograin)达成了一项大豆采购协议，并在上海投资了一家面包房，用来自丸红的小麦制作面包。丸红还进军中国新兴的葡萄酒行业，与日本啤酒制造商朝日啤酒(Asahi)在南通共同投资了一家葡萄酒酿造厂。

Marubeni is also investing in water, taking a 40 per cent stake in a purification plant in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, that is majority-owned by Veolia of France.

丸红还投资于水务行业，在四川成都一家净化厂拥有40%的股份——法国威立雅集团(Veolia)拥有该公司多数股权。

Some of the shosha's most intriguing moves have involved brokering trade between China and third countries. Mitsubishi, for example, has sold Chinese-built cement-making equipment to Vietnam, and sees future opportunities in marketing Chinese-made railway cars to India and other developing countries.

综合商社最让人感兴趣的举动，涉及到斡旋中国与第三国之间的贸易。例如，三菱将中国生产的水泥制造设备销往越南，并且认为将来有机会向印度及其它发展中国家推销中国制造的铁路车辆。

“China doesn't have experience selling its own products overseas, so Mitsubishi's job would be to find customers,” says Mr Hino of Mitsubishi.

三菱的Hino表示：“中国缺乏向海外销售自己产品的经验，因此，三菱的任务是找到客户。”

One risk to the strategy is that as Chinese companies grow and gain more international experience, they will see less need to piggyback on the shosha.

这种战略的风险之一，是随着中国企业逐渐成长，并获得更多的国际经验，它们将认为没有什么必要继续依附日本商社。

That has already happened with manufacturers in Japan, and is one reason the shosha were forced to shift away from trading to investment.

一些日本制造商已经遇到了这种情况，这也是商社被迫从贸易转向投资的原因之一。

Another obstacle is lingering resentment of Japan's wartime occupation of China, which some trading company managers worry might surface if they seek majority control of their Chinese ventures.

另一个障碍是中国人长久以来对日本战时侵占中国的怨恨情绪。一些贸易公司的高管担心，如果它们寻求获得在华合资企业的多数股权，这种情绪可能会爆发出来。

“Can you imagine a Japanese-controlled utility raising water rates in China?” asks one. “There's no way we would even try.”

“你能想象，在中国，一家由日本控股的水务公司提高水费吗？”一位高管问道。“我们连试一下都没门儿。”

This is the third in a series on Japan's business relations with China.

译者/何黎