把事業當成買賣，“英國華為”是怎麼垮掉的_風聞

英國《衞報》5月8日刊登專欄作者、高級評論員阿迪亞·查克拉博迪文章《為什麼英國沒有華為》

文：Aditya Chakrabortty

譯：楊瑞賡

你很可能已經對中國的華為公司有了相當多的瞭解。這家中國巨頭是世界上最具爭議的公司之一。安全專家們（也就是一般被我們當作偏執狂的那些人）警告稱，中國的電信設備可能會被北京方面用來監視我們。英國首相特蕾莎·梅的許多內閣同僚們央求她把這家中國公司遠遠擋在英國5G網絡市場之外，但梅首相併沒有理睬那些人。一位或幾位高級部長可能太急於表達他們對國家安全的擔憂，甚至因此泄露了會議的細節，這反而危害了英國的國家安全。

所以，你完全可以猜到，當特朗普政府的國務卿邁克·蓬佩奧5月8日會見英國首相特蕾莎·梅及其外交部長傑里米·亨特時發生了什麼。在關於王室添丁的寒暄結束後，美國第一件做的事就是警告唐寧街10號，稱華為對英國人隱私構成了威脅，並重申如果英國不聽話，作為報復華盛頓方面可能會把倫敦方面排除在情報網絡之外。

或許你還記得揭發美國國安局的愛德華·斯諾登以及他披露的種種大規模監控內幕。或許你驚訝於英國保守黨政府被捲入不斷升級的中美貿易戰的不幸。華為使我們想到的問題太多太多，然而其中最關鍵的問題我還沒看到有人提出過。那就是——英國自己的華為在哪裏？

英國作為全球最發達的經濟體之一，本國竟然沒有一家大型電信設備製造商，以至於不得不從華為——據美國聯邦調查局稱該公司與中共和中國軍方都有密切聯繫——那裏購買重要電信設備。這種事情到底是怎麼發生的？

答案是，英國曾經有過一家這樣的公司。它曾是世界上最大、最著名的工業企業之一。從它被消滅至今也不過10多年時間，可以説這篇文章的讀者都經歷過那個年代。這家公司便是英國通用電氣公司（General Electric Company，簡稱GEC）。讀懂GEC如何走向滅亡的故事，便能理解英國目前面臨的大部分混亂情況。

上世紀80年代初，處於鼎盛時期的GEC根本不是一家公司，而是一個由180家不同公司組成的帝國，總共僱傭了約25萬名員工。它的產品從X光機到船舶應有盡有，在電信和國防電子領域佔有巨大的市場份額。自從1963年執掌公司以來，董事總經理阿諾德·温斯托克在30年時間裏，把GEC打造成了一個龐然巨獸，確立了自己作為戰後英國頭號實業家的地位。

作為波蘭猶太移民的兒子，温斯托克從未真正融入到英國建制派權勢集團當中。眾所周知，他在公司裏熱衷於削減成本，卻不善於人事管理，只有培育賽馬和參觀米蘭的斯卡拉歌劇院才能真正讓他煥發神采。參觀GEC公司梅菲爾總部的記者們發現，温斯托克的地毯已經磨禿，牆上的油漆也開始剝落。一位經常與大企業高管推杯換盞的《經濟學人》記者在做客GEC後抱怨説：“GEC公司連杯水都不給客人倒”。

《經濟學人》雜誌的那篇文章題目叫作《最遲鈍的美德》，它總結了人們對GEC老闆和企業本身的看法：穩步盈利，但謹小慎微，在上世紀80年代做着狂飆增長夢的英國，這種風格顯得很不入時。首相瑪格麗特·撒切爾並不喜歡温斯托克，她更青睞被人們戲稱為“錢袋勳爵”的詹姆斯·漢森，後者以善於打劫其他企業的資產而聞名。去監管化之後，倫敦金融城銀行家們根本看不上GEC公司分佈廣泛卻單調乏味的業務，它們與強調“小而專”的時代顯得格格不入，而温斯托克本人那種靦腆的氣質也受到嚴重的鄙視。

倫敦金融城那些穿細條紋西服的銀行家們的嘲笑或許刺激到了温斯托克。儘管他爭辯稱“我們不是一家負責提供興奮感的公司”，他也開始逐漸沉浸在80年代的商業文化裏——所謂“一個東西只要能動，買下來就不虧”。學者們發現，GEC公司在1988年至1998年間至少進行了79次“重大重組活動”，包括收購、出售業務部門或成立合資公司。不過，所有事情真正變得一團糟，還是在1996年温斯托克辭職以後。接替他的是一位名叫喬治·辛普森的會計師，《衞報》曾批評他“出賣路虎給德國人”。新任財務總監約翰·梅奧來自温斯托克厭惡的商業銀行界。兩人看到前任積攢下來的鉅額現金，於是開始着手花錢。

他們賣掉舊業務，收購新業務，公司寒酸氣一掃而空，處處閃耀着興奮點。僅在1999-2000財年，它就從美國到澳大利亞至少收購了15家公司。突然之間，由GEC電信業務重組而成的馬可尼通信公司深受銀行家和媒體人的喜愛，因為前者能拿到交易提成，後者能獲得頭條新聞的素材。

然後，互聯網泡沫破裂，新收購的業務每況愈下。這家原本股價達到12.5英鎊的公司現在每股僅值4便士。在21世紀頭10年的中期，馬可尼最重要的客户英國電信放棄了馬可尼，轉而開始使用華為的設備。儘管馬可尼公司死掉時，温斯托克已經離開人世，但他人生最後階段曾公開表示：“我想把辛普森和梅奧吊到一棵大樹上，讓他們在那裏蕩很長一段時間。”

兩個管理層之間不是天才與傻子的差別，更不是善良與邪惡的差別。温斯托克並不像表面上那麼遲鈍，他也不是沒有犯錯誤。但“英國華為”的衰落是英國近幾十年來最重要的事件之一，它凸顯了兩種商業文化之間的衝突。一方面是温斯托克，他用幾十年時間裏建立了一整套體系；另一方面是辛普森和梅奧熱衷的精明交易，為了給了股東們分快錢，他們沉溺在季度報表的小數據裏不可自拔。

GEC走的這條路也是英國帝國化工（Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd.）等家喻户曉的公司所走的路，同時也是英國這個國家所選擇的道路。這個國家的政治階層既不關心國家的工業巨頭、老牌銀行或艦隊街的報社掌握在誰手裏，也不在乎這些機構的掌門人會帶領它們走向何方。這就是我們今天的資本主義被菲利普·格林式（注：菲利普·格林是零售業巨頭，創下英國商業史上賺錢最快的紀錄）人品欠佳、一夜暴富的商人主導的原因。

謝菲爾德大學負責創新的副校長理查德·瓊斯指出，GEC和ICI等英國公司過去曾大規模投資研發。如今，英國在研發領域不僅被所有主要西方競爭對手超越，就連人均GDP遠低於英國的中國，其研發投入也要高於英國。

如今，英國人對詹姆斯·戴森這樣的商人大加讚賞，他們的大部分產品都是在亞洲生產的。結果就是，我們只能等着其他國家來收購我們的資產。甚至在電信設備這種相對簡單的東西上，我們都身不由己地被拖入其他國家的戰略衝突中去。 

Why doesn’t Britain have a Huawei of its own?

Chances are that you have learned rather a lot about Huawei. That the Chinese giant is one of the world’s most controversial companies. That security experts, those people we pay to be paranoid on our behalf, warn its telecoms kit could be used by Beijing to spy on us. That Theresa May was begged by cabinet colleagues to keep the firm well away from our 5G network – yet ignored them. And that one or more senior ministers were so eager to prove their concern for national security that they leaked details of their meeting, thus breaching national security.

So you can already guess what will happen when Donald Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, meets May and her foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, on Wednesday. Once the pleasantries about Harry and Meghan’s baby are over, top of America’s agenda will be to warn No 10 of the threat Huawei poses to British privacy – and to restate that Washington may retaliate by freezing London out of its intelligence network.

Maybe you recall whistleblower Edward Snowden and his revelations, published in this paper, about how US surveillance services are themselves harvesting millions of people’s phone calls and internet usage. Or possibly you are too busy gasping at the haplessness with which a Conservative-run government has allowed itself to be dragged into an escalating trade war between Washington and Beijing. Many are the questions raised by this affair, but among the largest is one I have not seen asked. Namely, where is Britain’s Huawei? How does one of the world’s most advanced economies end up without any major telecoms equipment maker of its own, and having to buy the vital stuff from a company that enjoys, according to the FBI, strong links with both the Chinese Communist party and the People’s Liberation Army?

Well, the answer is that the UK did have one. It was one of the largest and most famous industrial companies in the world. And it was finally killed off within the lifetime of every person reading this article, just over a decade ago. It was called the General Electric Company, or GEC, and the story of how it came to die explains and illuminates much of the mess the country is in today.

At its height, in the early 80s, GEC was not a company at all. It was an empire comprising around 180 different firms and employing about 250,000 people. It built everything from x-ray machines to ships, and it was huge in telecoms and defence electronics. At the helm was Arnold Weinstock, who took the reins in 1963 and spent the next three decades building it into a colossus, securing his place as postwar Britain’s most renowned industrialist.

The son of Jewish Polish immigrants, Weinstock never quite slotted into his role in the British establishment. He was known to be fanatical about cost-cutting, terrible at managing people, and only really lit up by breeding racehorses and visiting Milan’s La Scala opera house. Journalists visiting his Mayfair headquarters found the carpet threadbare and the paint peeling off the walls. A correspondent for the Economist more used to convivial three-bottle lunches with captains of industry came away complaining that GEC’s guests “have never been known to receive so much as a glass of water”.

That Economist profile was headlined Lord of Dullest Virtue, which sums up how both boss and business were seen: steadily profitable yet cautious and utterly unfashionable in the Britain of the 80s, which fancied a turbocharge. Weinstock went unloved by Margaret Thatcher, who preferred the corporate-raiding asset-stripper James Hanson (or Lord Moneybags, as he was dubbed). The post-Big Bang City bankers glanced at GEC’s vast spread of unglamorous businesses, out of step in an era of specialisation, and its shy boss better suited to a Rhineland boardroom – and buried both in plump-vowelled disdain.

Perhaps the pinstriped jeering got to Weinstock. Even as he protested “we’re not a company to render excitement”, he too began indulging in the 1980s business culture of “if it moves, buy it”. Between 1988 and 1998, academics found that GEC did no fewer than 79 “major restructuring events”: buying or selling units, or setting up joint ventures. But it was after Weinstock stepped down in 1996 that all hell broke loose. His replacement was an accountant, George Simpson, who had made his name, as the Guardian sniffed, “selling Rover to the Germans”. The new finance director, John Mayo, came from the merchant-banking world detested by Weinstock. Together the two men looked at the giant cash pile salted away by their predecessor – and set about spending it, and then some.

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They sold the old businesses and bought shiny new ones; they flogged off dowdy and snapped up exciting. In just one financial year, 1999-2000, they bought no fewer than 15 companies, from America to Australia. Suddenly, GEC – or Marconi, as the rump was rebranded – was beloved by the bankers, who marvelled at the commissions coming their way, and the reporters, who had headlines to write.

Then came the dotcom bust, and the new purchases went south. A company that had been trading at £12.50 a share was now worth only four pence a pop. In the mid-2000s, Marconi’s most vital client, BT, passed it over for a contract that went instead to … Huawei. Weinstock didn’t live to see the death of his beloved firm but among his last reported remarks was: “I’d like to string [Simpson and Mayo] up from a high tree and let them swing there for a long time.”

This is not a story about genius versus idiocy, let alone good against evil. Weinstock was not quite as dull as made out, nor did he avoid all errors. But it is one of the most important episodes in recent British history – because it highlights the clash between two business cultures. On the one hand is Weinstock, building an institution over decades; on the other is the frenetic wheeler-dealing of Simpson and Mayo, mesmerised by quarterly figures and handing shareholders a fast buck. The road GEC took is the one also taken by ICI and other household names. It is also the one opted for by Britain as a whole, whose political class decided it cared neither who owned our industrial giants or venerable banks or Fleet Street newspapers, nor what they did with them. That is why our capitalism is today dominated by unsavoury, get-rich-quick merchants in the Philip Green mould.

Firms such as GEC and ICI used to invest heavily in research and development, notes Sheffield University’s pro-vice-chancellor for innovation, Richard Jones. Now the UK has been overtaken in R&D by all major western competitors. Even China, a vastly poorer economy in terms of GDP per capita, is more research-intensive than the UK.

Now Britons laud businessmen such as James Dyson who make most of their stuff in Asia. As a result, we rely on the rest of the world to come here and buy our assets. And even on something as relatively simple as telecoms equipment, we can’t help but be pulled into other countries’ strategic battles.

(End)