佛山市的洋公務員 Young expats bring expertise to Chinese local government

Four local government employees jump into their minibus, beaming from ear to ear. They have just had a chance meeting with the Communist party secretary of Foshan, a prosperous city of 7m in China’s Guangdong province.

四名佛山市公務員滿面春風地鑽進麪包車，他們剛剛有幸與佛山市委書記進行了一次會面。佛山市位於中國的廣東省，是一座擁有700萬人口的繁華都市。

Many Chinese officials long for an to salute the local party boss, in whose hands rests the fate of their entire career. What is different about these four is that they are foreigners.

在中國，許多官員都渴望能有機會與本地市委書記說上話，坐在這個位置的人手裏掌握着他們日後整個職業生涯的命運。但這四名官員有些不同——他們都是外國人。

“That was the highlight of the month,” Abbey Heffer, a 23-year-old politics graduate from Exeter University in the UK, says to colleagues Nicolas Santo from Uruguay, Giovanni Lovisetti from Italy and Maria Acastenco from Mexico. They are part of an unusual experiment designed to boost foreign investment in Foshan and help transform it from workmanlike manufacturing hub into an innovative industrial metropolis.

23歲的阿比欠弗(Abbey Heffer)對其他三位同事說：“這是本月最重要的時刻。”赫弗是英國埃克塞特大學(Exeter University)的政治學研究生，其他三人分別是來自烏拉圭的尼古拉斯儠塨(Nicolas Santo)，來自意大利的喬瓦尼洛維塞提(Giovanni Lovisetti)以及來自墨西哥的瑪麗亞騠慎斯滕科(Maria Acastenco)。他們參與了一項不尋常的實驗，實驗目的是促進外國對佛山的投資，並幫助這座城市從熟練的製造業中心轉變成創新型工業大都市。

Youthful, clever and ambitious, they and American colleague Yahya Yuksel have been hired as consultants by the Foshan Investment Promotion Agency, part of the city’s commerce bureau.

這四個聰明、志向遠大的年輕人，加上他們的美國同事葉海亞踠克塞爾(Yahya Yuksel)，都被佛山市投資促進局聘爲國際投資推廣專員。佛山市投資促進局爲佛山市商務局下屬單位。

While Communist China has a long history of recruiting foreign experts to advise state-owned companies and teach at universities, Foshan is one of the first local governments to recruit younger expats and implant them into its bureaucratic machinery. “When we attend conferences and hand out our business cards, people still don’t believe we work for the government,” says Ms Acastenco, a 26-year-old international relations graduate, back at the FIPA’s low-rise, city centre office.

雖然新中國在國有企業聘用外國專家顧問，大學聘用外籍教師方面有着悠久歷史，但佛山是第一批招募年輕的外籍人士，將他們安排到自己的官僚體系中的地方政府之一。佛山市投資促進局的辦公樓位於市中心，是一棟低層建築。在這裏，亞卡斯滕科說：“當我們在會議上分發自己的名片時，大家仍不相信我們爲政府工作。”她今年26歲，畢業於國際關係專業。

Cities such as Foshan, Dongguan and Shenzhen — all in Guangdong — were the driving force of the low-cost manufacturing revolution after the Chinese economy began to open up in the 1980s. But slowing growth, rising wages and the renewed government focus on innovation are pushing cities to attract more high-tech investors and cut their reliance on making cheap widgets. “We have to make Foshan more transparent and open to outside cultures. In the past we were just a place to make things but now we want to be a nice place to live too,” says Liu Xiaoming, deputy director-general of the commerce bureau.

中國經濟於上世紀八十年代開始對外開放，佛山、東莞和深圳等城市（都位於廣東）從此成了低成本製造業革命的動力。但中國經濟增長放緩、薪資上漲，加上政府對創新的再度關注，推動這些城市去吸引更多高科技投資者，同時降低它們對製造廉價產品的依賴。佛山市商務局副局長劉曉明表示：“我們必須讓佛山對外來文化更加透明、更加開放。過去我們這兒只是製造東西的地方，如今我們還要把佛山轉變成適宜居住的地方。”

Guangdong has long been a cradle of policy experimentation in China, 1,200 miles from the central government in Beijing and with a history of internat trade links and private enterprise.

廣東長期以來都是中國進行政策實驗的搖籃，這裏距離北京的中央政府有1200英里，並且在國際貿易往來和民營企業方面有着長久的歷史。

The lightbulb moment for Foshan’s local government came, fittingly, from an executive of the German lighting manufacturer Osram, who suggested hiring advisers from overseas to smooth communications with foreign investors.

佛山市政府聘用外國顧問的靈感來自德國照明製造商歐司朗(Osram)的一位高管，他建議當地政府聘請海外顧問，從而能順利的與外商溝通。

First on board was Mr Santo, 28, who joined in 2013 after studying law at Harvard and Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University. “I saw an advert in the China Daily newspaper and wasn’t sure if it was real so I called up right away to check,” says Mr Santo, a smart dresser with a well-trimmed beard.

第一個入職的是28歲的尼古拉斯儠塨，他於2013年入職，此前他曾在哈佛(Harvard)和北京著名高校清華大學(Tsinghua University)學習法律。桑託衣着時髦，鬍鬚修剪得很整齊，他說：“我在《中國日報》(China Daily)上看到一則廣告，不知道是真是假，於是馬上打電話來確認。”

In Uruguay his claim to fame was that as a youth he played football in the same team as Luis Suárez, the brilliant but temperamental Barcelona striker. In China, he has been feted as the face of a new generation of foreigners helping to build a better nation, and even given his own column in the China Daily.

尼古拉斯在烏拉圭也小有名氣，青少年時期他曾與巴薩(Barcelona)前鋒路易斯蘇亞雷斯(Luis Suárez)同隊踢球——蘇亞雷斯是一名傑出的球員，但容易激動。到了中國以後，尼古拉斯一直被譽爲幫助把中國建設成更好國家的新一代外國人的代言人，他甚至還在《中國日報》上有自己的專欄。