賴昌星被判無期徒刑並沒收個人全部財產
據中國國有媒體報道﹐曾潛逃國外的中國頭號通緝犯賴昌星被判處無期徒刑﹐一樁凸顯了中國官場腐敗問題程度之深並導致中國和加拿大關係緊張的案件就此完結。
Reuters
賴昌星中國國有媒體新華社週五報道﹐廈門市中級人民法院經審理查明﹐賴昌星走私普通貨物及行賄罪名成立﹐判處無期徒刑。新華社報道說﹐這家法院還判決沒收賴昌星個人全部財產。
這家法院沒有對賴昌星處以死刑。此前﹐對賴昌星可能被處死的擔憂早些時候曾在中國和加拿大之間引發外交爭議。加拿大駐中國大使館的官員沒有立即回復置評請求。
賴昌星早些時候曾到加拿大尋求政治庇護﹐他認為中國政府對他的指控存在政治動機。
中國政府指控賴昌星從事了大量走私活動﹐這些活動牽扯到了中共成員﹐也凸顯了中國官場腐敗程度之深。即使是中國的高層領導人也承認﹐腐敗問題仍然是政府面臨的一大挑戰。
新華社週五援引中國政府機構的話報道說﹐對賴昌星的審判表明了中國政府打擊犯罪、懲治腐敗的決心。
中國政府對賴昌星案的調查涉及超過200名高層人士。
中國政府還公開澄清﹐目前中共高層第四號人物、中共中央政治局常委賈慶林的妻子與本案沒有牽連。賈慶林的妻子林幼芳否認有不法行為﹐也沒有受到指控。
賴昌星及其家人1999年潛逃到加拿大﹐並要求獲得難民身份。在接下來的幾年里﹐他成了引發兩國外交爭議的因素。他在加拿大的法院表示拒絕遣返﹐並聲稱回到中國後不會獲得公正的審判﹐將會被處死﹐而且他還被當成了中共腐敗問題的替罪羊。
但是加拿大的一家法院去年堅持遣返賴昌星﹐並表示賴昌星只是普通罪犯﹐駁回了賴昌星的請求。同時﹐中國政府向加拿大承諾﹐賴昌星不會受到酷刑或是被處死﹐並有權與律師和加拿大官員見面。
加拿大法院做出這一裁決的同時﹐中加兩國近年來的緊張關係也開始出現改善。對加拿大來說﹐中國的地位正變得越來越重要﹐中國已經成為加拿大能源和原材料的大買家。
在打擊走私的活動中﹐中國對300多名嫌疑人進行了審理﹐判處14人死刑﹐其中包括多名省級官員以及一名前公安部副部長。
在1999年賴昌星最得勢的時期﹐他的資產價值高達數億美元﹐其中包括一家投資1,700萬美元仿造紫禁城建造的電影城。他旗下還有一支專業足球隊。
中國的調查機構說﹐賴昌星走私了價值高達60億美元的貨物﹐包括汽車、石油和電子產品﹐偷逃應繳稅額40億美元。
Carlos Tejada
S Korea’s graduates struggle in jobs market
Mr Oh, 29, a business
studies graduate, regards himself as unusual. He has made only 50
applications to work at leading South Korean conglomerates. “Most people
have made more like 100 applications,” he jokes.
To improve his odds he has, like many university graduates, enrolled
in a cram school where students work to improve their English and
Chinese in the hope it will give them an edge when applying for job at a
conglomerate, or chaebol, such as Samsung Electronics or Hyundai Motor.
Many, like Mr Oh, are so ashamed of their failure to get good jobs that
they decline to give their full names.The problem confronting Mr Oh and his peers is one of South Korea’s biggest economic conundrums: there are not enough chaebol jobs to go around.
South Korea’s official unemployment rate for the under-30s is 8.3 per cent, more than twice the national average. And although more than 80 per cent of Koreans enrol in tertiary education, the chaebol provide only about 10 per cent of jobs. Most worryingly for young Koreans, and the broader economy, the big names of Korean industry are increasingly forging their new growth abroad.
Samsung Electronics is to build a $7bn memory chip factory in the Chinese city of Xian. It is the latest of more than 140 production, research and retail units that Samsung runs in China. Hyundai Motor’s newest big plant is in Brazil, joining those it has in the US, Russia, India and China. Increasingly, large Korean businesses are heading to south-east Asia.
The result is that the so-called Itaebaek or “mainly unemployed 20-somethings” are looking for opportunities in the small and medium-sized enterprises inside Korea, where the stellar growth that pulled the nation out of the wreckage of civil war in the 1950s is long gone. During the boom years of the 1970s, the chaebols’ ensured the Korean economy grew at 9 per cent a year.
Gross domestic product rose a modest 2.8 per cent in the first quarter of this year, compared with 12 months earlier, according to data yesterday. The economy grew 3.6 per cent during 2011.
Many nations would envy such growth but it falls short of the 7 per cent promised by Lee Myung-bak when he won the presidency.
The government has promised to build up weak SMEs, that prefer to employ experienced middle-aged workers rather than recent graduates they cannot afford to train. But governments have been promising to switch focus from chaebol to SMEs without success since the 1980s.
The weakness of South Korea’s SMEs is becoming an urgent strategic difficulty for Asia’s fourth-biggest economy as several prominent chaebol – particularly in sectors such as shipbuilding and heavy engineering – are increasingly threatened by China. Japan has partly weathered China’s rise by having strong, specialist SMEs but South Korea’s economy lacks such depth.
However, many of the students at the Seoul cram school where Mr Oh studies would not consider working at SMEs, because of low pay and welfare entitlements.
“People apply for all possible companies but when they get an interview at an SME they tend not to go,” said a 26-year-old student, who gave her name only as Miss Kim.
The result of that sort of attitude is that SME jobs go unfilled. “There were 250,000 jobs in the SME sector that we could not fill last year,” said Im Young-joo, an official at Korea’s SME federation. “We have three times the level of unfilled vacancies as chaebol.”
Such figures from SMEs, which provide 90 per cent of jobs, are remarkable given high youth unemployment. Many social workers argue the statistic of 8.3 per cent unemployment for the under-30s does not include many young graduates who take jobs, for example, in shops or study further because they feel hopeless about the chance of finding decent work.
“A job at an SME is seen as only a temporary phase before landing a chaebol job,” said Jung Seung-woo, a 25-year old who wants to work in sales.
SMEs often say the chaebol keep them weak by squeezing them for impractically low prices. Chaebol also face many accusations of buying out successful SMEs, to strip staff and assets.
Ms Im said the government should strengthen small companies by giving subsidies and tax breaks to those working at SMEs.
Ultimately, frustration about the quality of jobs may boil over politically in December’s presidential election. Many young people want Ahn Chul-soo, a popular internet entrepreneur who is critical of chaebol, to stand as an independent for president despite his lack of political experience.
“The root of all our social problems is jobs,” Mr Ahn has said. “Officially, unemployment is about 3.5 per cent but we all know that doesn’t reflect the reality.”
Additional reporting, Song Jung-a in Seoul
29歲的商科畢業生吳先生認為自己與大多數人不一樣。他只向韓國各大企業集團發出了50份求職申請。他開玩笑說：“大多數人發出的申請都多達100份。”為了提高申請成功率，吳先生像很多大學畢業生一樣，報名參加了一個補習學校，在那里通過補習來提高英語和漢語水平，以期在申請三星電子(Samsung Electronics)或現代汽車(Hyundai Motor)等大企業集團（即財閥）的工作時，外語能力能成為他的一個加分項。與吳先生一樣，很多大學畢業生都因自己未能找到好工作而感到羞愧，以至於不願向記者透露自己的全名。吳先生及其同齡人遇到的這個問題，是韓國最大的經濟難題之一：眾財閥提供不了足夠多的就業機會。韓國官方發布的30歲以下人群失業率為8.3%，是全國各年齡段失業率平均值的兩倍多。韓國大學生在全國同齡人口中所佔的比例超過80%，而眾財閥提供的就業崗位僅佔全國的10%左右。對韓國年輕人及韓國整個經濟而言，最令人擔憂的是，韓國工業巨擘越來越多地在海外打造新的增長引擎。三星電子將在中國西安建設一家價值70億美元的存儲芯片廠。它是三星在中國運營的140多家生產、研究和零售機構中的最新一家。現代汽車最新的一家大型工廠位於巴西，該公司在美國、俄羅斯、印度和中國也設有工廠。此外，還有越來越多的韓國大企業正在涉足東南亞。因此，以20多歲的年輕失業者為主的人群正在韓國國內的中小企業尋找機會。在韓國，幫助國家走出上世紀50年代內戰殘骸的那種輝煌增長早已成為過去。在上世紀70年代的繁榮時期，眾財閥曾確保韓國經濟每年以9%的幅度增長。根據最新數據，今年第一季度，韓國國內生產總值(GDP)同比略增2.8%。去年全年，韓國經濟增長了3.6%。也許有很多國家會對這樣的增長感到羨慕，但它並沒有達到韓國總統李明博(Lee Myung-bak)當初贏得大選時承諾的7%的增長目標。韓國政府已承諾要增強弱小的中小企業的實力，這些中小企業更願聘用有經驗的中年員工，而非剛剛畢業的大學生，因為它們承擔不起培訓成本。自上世紀80年代起，韓國政府就承諾要把關注重心從財閥轉移到中小企業，但一直未見進展。韓國中小企業的疲弱正成為這個亞洲第四大經濟體面臨的一個緊迫戰略難題，因為幾大財閥——尤其是造船和重型機械製造等領域的財閥——正日益受到中國企業的威脅。日本憑藉強大而專業的中小企業，在一定程度上經受住了中國崛起帶來的挑戰。但韓國經濟缺乏這種深度。不過，由於中小企業的工資和福利水平較低，吳先生就讀的這家首爾補習學校的很多學生不會考慮到中小企業工作。一個26歲的金姓女生表示：“人們會申請所有存在錄用可能的公司，不過，如果他們接到中小企業的面試通知，他們一般不會去。”這種態度的結果是，中小企業的職位空缺無人填補。 “去年，中小企業的職位空缺為25萬個，”韓國中小企業聯合會的官員Im Young-joo表示，“（中小企業的）職位空缺數量是大企業集團的3倍。”考慮到高企的年輕人失業率，來自中小企業的這些數據就很值得注意了。韓國中小企業提供的就業崗位佔全國的90%。很多社會工作者認為，在統計得出8.3%的30歲以下人群失業率時，並沒有把（比方說）很多在商店工作或繼續深造的年輕畢業生計算在內——這些畢業生做出如此選擇是因為他們感到沒有希望找到體面的工作。今年25歲、想幹銷售工作的Jung Seung-woo表示：“人們只是把中小企業的工作當作一塊跳板，最終還是要在財閥裡謀得職位。”中小企業經常表示，它們之所以實力弱小，是因為財閥壓榨它們以獲取低得離譜的價格。許多人還指責財閥通過全盤收購成功的中小企業，來奪走這些企業的員工和資產。Im Young-joo表示，政府應通過向中小企業員工提供補貼和稅收優惠，來增強中小企業的實力。最終，民眾對於就業質量的失望情緒可能會在12月份韓國總統選舉時在政治領域爆發。很多年輕人希望人氣頗高的互聯網企業家安哲秀(Ahn Chul-soo)以獨立候選人身份參加此次大選（儘管他缺乏政治經驗）。安哲秀對財閥持批評態度。“就業是韓國一切社會問題的根源。”他表示，“根據官方數據，目前的失業率為3.5%左右，但我們都知道，這並未反映現實。”英國《金融時報》宋京雅(Song Jung-a)首爾補充報導譯者/梁艷裳
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