告別製造時代的中國不再山寨了?大綱

Can China innovate its way out of a prolonged economic growth slowdown? Shaun Rein, managing director of the China Market Research Group, believes so. In his new book, “The End of Copycat China – The Rise of Creativity, Innovation and Individualism in Asia”, he argues that China will start innovating now because it has to – and that it didn’t before simply because it didn’t need to. That’s an interesting theory, but is he right?
中國能否通過創新走出長期經濟增長放緩的困境？中國市場研究集團(China Market Research)的董事總經理雷小山(Shaun Rein)相信可以。在他的新書《山寨中國的終結：亞洲創造力、創新力和個人主義的崛起》(The End of Copycat China – The Rise of Creativity, Innovation and Individualism in Asia)中，雷小山認爲，中國如今將開啓創新之路，因爲它不得不如此，而過去之所以沒這麼做，也僅僅是因爲還不需要。這是種有趣的理論，但他說得對嗎？

Rein first does battle with common perceptions that the Chinese political system or culture limits its ability to innovate. It’s not because China is a communist-led country with limited individual freedom, that it does not come up with corporate inventions, he ’s also wrong, he says, to think that Chinese are simply unable to innovate because of some perceived “Confucian conformity”, as academic Panos Mourdoukoutas argued in Forbes in 2012. For Rein, such an argument is historically incorrect, as even at the height of Confucianian influence, the country brought about huge innovations such as “gunpowder, multi-stage rockets and the compass”.
雷小山先是反駁了中國政治體制或文化限制其創新能力的普遍看法。他稱，中國企業沒有創造力，並非因爲中國是共產黨領導、個人自由有限的國家。他表示，像學者普諾斯•莫杜庫塔斯(Panos Mourdoukoutas) 2012年在《福布斯》(Forbes)上的主張一樣，認爲中國無法創新只是因爲一些人眼中的“尊孔”，也是不對的。對雷小山來說，如此說法從歷史的角度來看是錯誤的，因爲哪怕在孔子影響最盛之時，這個國家也出現了偉大的創新，比如“火藥、多級火箭和指南針”。

The real reason why we saw less innovation – and more imitation – emanating from China in recent decades, has simply been that this approach was best suited to the country’s economic reality until now.
之所以我們看到中國最近幾十年中釋放出的創新力不足而模仿有餘，真正的原因僅僅是這種方式最適合該國直至今日的經濟狀況。

In a country where common products have often been under-supplied, there was little motivation to strive to create the most sophisticated technologies. Better not to reinvent the wheel; rather make as many wheels as cheaply as you can with the technology provided by those who invented it in the first place. That’s exactly what many Chinese companies did in the last few decades, whether in manufacturing washing machines, computers, mobile phones, or online marketplaces.
在一個普通商品經常供應不足的國家，努力發展最先進技術的動機不足。最好不要重新發明車輪；而是採用最先發明車輪的人提供的技術，儘可能多地以低廉的成本來製造車輪。這正是很多中國企業在過去幾十年裏所做的，無論是製造洗衣機、電腦、手機，還是建立網上市場。

It is not until the next phase of development that we would expect to see some innovation. As companies such as Haier, Lenovo, Xiaomi and Alibaba faced internal competition to their cheap and relatively straightforward products, they responded not by aspiring to the cutting edge of global technology, but by upgrading their existing technologies and producing them more efficiently.
直到下一個發展階段，我們纔有望看見一些創新。如海爾(Haier)、聯想(Lenovo)、小米(Xiaomi)和阿里巴巴(Alibaba)這類公司，在其廉價且相對簡單的產品遭遇內部競爭時，他們過去的應對方式不是追求全球尖端技術，而是升級其現有技術，並更有效率地製造產品。

Having won the battle to provide the most basic goods to domestic consumers, Chinese companies are now increasingly, and often for the first time, forced to turn to product innovation, Rein writes. They either have to start climbing the value chain abroad or in China, as the low hanging fruit of supplying basic goods has gone. They won’t fail. Why? Because they didn’t when faced with the previous challenges.
雷小山在書中寫道，在贏得向國內消費者提供最基本商品的戰役後，如今中國企業越來越被迫——常常是首次——轉向產品創新。由於供應基本商品這顆“低垂的果實”已經被採摘，這些企業不得不開始在中國或國外市場攀爬價值鏈。他們不會失敗。爲什麼？因爲他們在面對之前的挑戰時從未失敗過。

As examples, Rein points to companies like Alibaba. Through its subsidiary, TMall, it made consumers trust small and even unknown sellers of branded goods online. Through AliPay, a third party online payments system that is equivalent to PayPal, it addressed China’s weak consumer protection environment by collecting personal details from vendors that allow them to be tracked down if they sell substandard products. It seemed to work; Alibaba raised $21.8bn in its recent debut on the US stock exchange.
作爲範例，雷小山提到了像阿里巴巴這樣的公司。通過其子公司天貓(TMall)，阿里巴巴讓消費者信任在網上銷售品牌商品的小商家，甚至是無人知曉的商家。通過支付寶(AliPay)，即相當於PayPal的第三方在線支付系統，它以收集賣家個人信息的方式改善了中國脆弱的消費者保護環境，如果賣家銷售未達標的商品，他們可被追查到底。這招似乎很管用；阿里巴巴在美國的證券交易市場首次公開募股便完成了218億美元的融資。

Such cases – for which Rein gives a few more examples from companies such as Tencent, Huawei or Xiaomi – have to show that a communist or developing country background can be as fertile of a ground for innovation as any other. Indeed, the innovations Rein puts forward use the flaws of communist China to their advantage, rather than to be paralyzed by them.
雷小山還列舉了一些騰訊(Tencent)、華爲(Huawei)和小米等公司的例子。這些案例都表明，共產主義也好，發展中國家背景也罷，同樣可以爲創新提供肥沃的土壤。事實上，雷小山所提出的創新範例，都是把共產主義中國的缺陷爲己所用，而非受困其中。

For sure, Rein is not alone in his view that Chinese companies are getting to the innovation phase. Consulting firm BCG this year put four Chinese companies (Lenovo, Xiami, Tencent and Huawei) in its annual list of the world’s most 50 innovative companies.
毫無疑問，雷小山並不是唯一認爲中國企業正步入創新階段的人。今年，波士頓諮詢集團(BCG)把4家中國企業（聯想、小米、騰訊和華爲）納入其年度全球最具創新力的50家企業榜單。

In the later chapters of his book Rein comes up with a number of fields in which we can expect to see Chinese innovation, such as health care, healthy living, or tourism. In each of the fields, Rein shows that with increasing demand from Chinese consumers, innovative solutions are likely.
在該書的之後幾個章節中，雷小山提出了一些我們有望看到中國創新的領域，比如醫療、保健或旅遊。雷小山表明，在以上各個領域中，隨着中國消費者的需求不斷增長，都可能出現創新性方案。

But are the examples of a handful of companies enough to prove the bigger picture? Or is innovation in China still the exception, rather than the rule? After being convinced by Rein’s appealing storyline in the first few chapters, the reader is left wondering just that. While we are prepared to accept that some Chinese companies have innovated to a significant extent, we are less ready to believe that this means that the longstanding habit of copying is dead, as the title of the book suggests.
不過，少數幾家企業的創新例子足以證明全局嗎？或者，中國的創新是否仍屬個例，而非定式？在被雷小山最初幾章中有趣的故事說服後，讀者就會思考這些問題。儘管我們準備好接受一些中國企業已大舉創新的事實，但我們還不準備相信這意味着長期存在的模仿習慣已經像該書書名暗示的那樣終結。

Yet Rein’s is an intriguing book, with many interesting anecdotes, mini-case studies, and interviews. If you discount the author’s obvious self-interest in writing it (he is, after all, the founder of a consulting group helping Chinese and foreign companies succeed in the Chinese market), you will be pleasantly surprised by the author’s fluency, and the “teachable moments” that arise from his writings.
話雖如此，雷小山的書中選入了很多有趣軼事、迷你案例研究和採訪，確實引人入勝。如果不理會作者著書明顯的私心的話（雷小山畢竟是一家幫助中國及外國企業取勝於中國市場的諮詢集團的創始人），你將會驚喜於作者的雄辯之才，以及他筆下的“教學時間”。

“The End of Copycat China – The Rise of Creativity, Innovation and Individualism in Asia”, (227p) by Shaun Rein, and published by Wiley, will be available as of November 14, 2014 in the UK for £15.39. It is already on sale in the US ($25.00).
《山寨中國的終結：亞洲創造力、創新力和個人主義的崛起》（227頁），作者雷小山，約翰威立出版社(John Wiley)，2014年11月14日起在英國上架，建議零售價15.39英鎊。該書已在美國上架（定價25美元）。