谷歌留华将因小失大
世界最具创新精神的公司刚刚宣布，自己无法在中国经营下去。我们能从中了解到有关中国创新状况的哪些东西？答案就在问题之中。
2006年谷歌(Google)进入中国时，许多“过来人”谆谆告诫：中国的列宁主义政府会使他们难以开展业务。谷歌无视这番建议，押注事实将证明 互联网比共产党更强大——不管谷歌作出了什么妥协，只要它进到了门里，大众对自由信息的需求，将会推动互联网逐步朝着更开放的方向迈进。
4年过后，谷歌似乎终于认识到自己错了，而那些“过来人”是对的——短期而言，在中国，党比互联网更强大。如果是这样，谷歌在中国开就没有任何商业意义。
谷歌的全球业务是建立在以下基础上的：开放的网络、自由的信息流动，以及该公司认为自己拥有的管理信息流动的权利。这项权利是可理解的，并与谷歌的可信性和可靠性相关。假如谷歌丧失了用户的信任，它
就不会有业务——无论在什么地方。 这一点揭示了投资者一种愚蠢反应的错误所在：他们以为，谷歌离开中国，就等于告别全球增长最快的互联网市场，毫无必要地放弃这个市场将产生的天文数字般的收入。中国是个大国，拥有众多的互联网用户，其网络“围墙花园”肯定会增长。但只要偏执的政党坚持控制中国网民看、读、写的内容，相关收入和利润就会远远低于自由环境下的水平，并且将由那些最善于在险恶的政治环境中运营的公司所独揽。
与此同时，在无拘无束的全球互联网上，通过创新获取切实利润的机会多得惊人。谷歌的重大风险不是丢掉在中国的利润——而是恰恰相反。如果按照中国政府的条件留在中国，从而损及自身的可信性，谷歌可能会丧失全球市场上一个大得多的赚钱机会。
中国领导人大谈自己希望如何实现“自主创新”，让中国从一个技术追随者变成一个技术领导者。杞人忧天的西方评论家，过度地惊呼什么“经济权力正无可阻挡地从西方转向东方”，以及“中国世纪”即将来临。
这两种观点都忽略了中国政治体制所设置的巨大障碍。开放的网络、自由的信息流动，以及会引发现有社会和政治结构不安的科技创新能力，正是后工业化时代创新的内容。具备这些质素的社会，才能产生最多的创新——而要想获得经济上的领导地位，依赖的是创新、而非人口规模。
在中国成为一个理想社会之前，互联网会受到束缚，信息流动会受到压制，后工业化创新难以繁盛。在理想的社会中，政府与人民之间的关系是建立在信任、而非恐惧的基础之上。
这并不意味着中国很快就会停止增长。目前中国增长迅速，是因为它在工业化和城市化进程之中，同时在追赶全球技术领先者。这些进程颇为迅猛，动力十足，可能还将持续10年或20年，才会开始放缓。
但一旦放缓，中国就必须更多地依靠创新来维系增长。而只有在政治体制变得有利于创新的情况下，才有可能实现创新。
到那个时候，一个更强大、睿智的谷歌（或者其后来者）肯定会在中国找到机会。但在此之前，谷歌和其它真正具有创新精神的信息时代企业最好还是避而远之，无论从伦理还是从收益角度皆是如此。
译者/何黎
Why Google risks more by not exiting China
By Arthur Kroeber, managing director of Dragonomics Research and Advisory 2010-01-28
The world's most innovative company just announced that it can't do business in China. What does this tell us about the state of Chinese innovation? The question answers itself. When Google entered China in 2006, it got a lot of advice from old hands that China's Leninist state would make it hard for them to do business. Google ignored this advice and gambled that the internet would prove stronger than the Communist party – that once Google was in the door on however compromised terms, popular demand for freer information would create incremental movement toward a more open internet. Four years later, Google seems to have concluded that they were wrong and the old hands were right: in the short term, and within China, the party is more powerful than the internet. If this is so, it makes no business sense for Google to be in China. Google's global business is based on open networks, free information flows, and the company's perceived right to manage those flows. That right in turn is a function of Google's credibility and trustworthiness. If Google loses its customers' trust, it has no business – anywhere.
This point puts the lie to one of the sillier reactions from investors: that by leaving China, Google would needlessly forego zillions in future revenues from the world's biggest internet growth market.
China is a big country with lots of internet users, and its online walled garden will certainly grow. But as long as a paranoid party insists on controlling what Chinese internet users can see and read and write, revenues and profits will be far lower than they would be in a free environment, and they will accrue exclusively to the companies that best navigate treacherous political waters.
Meanwhile, the opportunities for true profit from innovation in the unfettered global internet are staggering. The big risk to Google is not missing out on profits in China – quite the reverse. By staying in China on the government's terms and damaging its credibility, Google would risk foregoing a far bigger revenue opportunity in the global market.
China's leaders talk a lot about how they want to create “indigenous innovation” and turn China from a technological follower into a technological leader. Alarmist western commentators warn ad nauseam about the “inexorable shift of economic power from West to East” and the coming “Chinese century.”
Both views ignore the massive roadblock imposed by China's political system. Open networks, free flows of information, and the ability for scientific and technological innovations to cause public discomfort to established social and political structures are the very stuff of innovation in the post-industrial age. Societies that enable these qualities generate the most innovation – and innovation, not population size, is what creates economic leadership.
Until China creates a society in which the relationship between the government and the governed is based on trust rather than fear, networks will be crimped, information flows throttled, and post-industrial innovation will fail to thrive.
This does not mean that China will stop growing any time soon. Right now, China is growing fast because it is industrialising, urbanising and catching up to the global technological leaders. These processes are powerful, have a lot of momentum, and will probably last for another decade or two before they start to slow down.
But once they slow down, China will need to rely more on innovation for growth. And it will only get that innovation if its political arrangements become friendlier to it.
When that happens, a bigger and wiser Google (or its successors) will certainly find opportunities there. But until then, Google and other truly innovative information-age companies will do better, both ethically and at the bottom line, by staying away.
沒有留言:
張貼留言