投资非洲：中美之间不存在竞赛

    美国公司正在大手笔下注非洲。

    在华盛顿召开的、为期3天的美非高峰论坛（U.S.-Africa summit）开幕式上，美国总统奥巴马宣布，美国公司已承诺在“清洁能源、航空、银行和建筑”领域新增140亿美元投资。

    鉴于过去10年全球经济增长最快的10个国家中有7个来自非洲，美国政府和公司打算投资非洲合情合理。周四的声明代表着美国参与非洲地区建设又向前迈进了一步，但与中国相比，仍相形见绌，特别是考虑到美国经济规模仍相当于中国经济的两倍。

    就在上次金融危机爆发时，中国超越美国成为了非洲最大的贸易伙伴，自那以来中非贸易持续增长。相比之下，美非贸易则停步不前，正如下图所示。图表来自布鲁金斯学会（Brookings Institution）专注于中非关系的研究员孙云（Yun Sun）制作。

    U.S. companies are betting big on Africa.

    Kicking off a three-day U.S.-Africa summit in Washington, D.C., President Obama announced that U.S. companies have committed $14 billion in new investments in “clean energy, aviation, banking, and construction.”

    It makes sense that the U.S. government and American firms would want to invest in Africa, given that it is home to 7 of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world over the past 10 years. But while Thursday’s announcement represents a step forward for American engagement in the region, it pales in comparison to what China is doing, especially when you take into account the fact that the U.S. economy is still twice as large as China’s.

    China surpassed the U.S. as Africa’s largest trade partner right around the time of the financial crisis, and trade between China and Africa has increased ever since. Trade between Africa and the U.S., on the other hand, has stagnated, as you can see in the chart below from Yun Sun, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who focuses on China’s relations with Africa.

    考虑到中国经济数据的质量，很难衡量中国公司通过建设基础设施或购买资产在非洲进行了多少直接投资，但据美国政府问责局（U.S. Government Accountability Office，GAO）去年的一份报告估计，美国公司在此类投资中仍领先于中国公司，但仅略微领先。2007年至2011年，美国在撒哈拉以南非洲地区的投资仅比中国多了23%，但GAO自己也怀疑，其估算值可能低估了中国在非洲大陆的投资。

    但是，对于一些有关非洲发展的竞争说法，奥巴马并不认可。本周接受《经济学人》（The Economist）采访时，奥巴马围绕中国在非洲的角色所给出的观点远比普通美国政客成熟：

    Given the poor quality of Chinese economic data, it’s more difficult to measure how much Chinese firms invest directly in Africa through building infrastructure or purchasing assets, but a U.S. Government Accountability Office report from last year estimated that U.S. firms still lead their Chinese counterparts in this kind of investment, but just barely. The U.S. only invested 23% more than China in Sub-Saharan Africa from 2007 through 2011, and the GAO suspects that even its approximation might be underestimating Chinese investment in the continent.

    Obama, however, has dismissed the notion of some sort of competition for the business of African development. In an interview this week with The Economist, the president showed a much more sophisticated view of China’s role in Africa than American politicians typically display:

    “我的观点是多多益善。我在非洲时常常会被问到中国的问题，我的态度是，应当欢迎每一个看到投资机会并愿意与非洲各国合作的国家。但要注意确保非洲政府与任何合作方达成的是一桩好的交易。这适用于美国，也适用于中国。”

    与之产生鲜明对比的是，奥巴马在经常谈到需要“通过在教育、创新和竞争方面赶超印度人和中国人来赢得未来”时的言辞。不只是奥巴马政府喜欢将中国描绘为竞争者而非协作者、在竞选季和国情咨文（State of the Union）等备受关注的活动中，美国政客都倾向于以毫不掩饰的竞争性词语来描述这个世界。但奥巴马看起来明白一点：这世界要比一场经济足球赛复杂不少。前述讲话表明，他相信非洲经济的发展有利于美国，即便不是美国公司在做这些开发，经济充满活力的非洲将成为极好的美国出口市场。

    中国已经接触美国，在非洲合作建设基础设施和开发项目。

    尽然如此，美国公司仍可以增加在非洲投资。研究显示，进行海外投资的公司更可能在本国增加投入并创造就业岗位。而且，美国公司可能会对拥有合作历史的国家出口更多产品。

    更为复杂的问题是，所有这些投资真的对非洲有益吗？媒体对于中国参与非洲发展已谈了很多，尽管中非关系在规模上仍比较有限。正如布鲁金斯学会的孙云在最近发布的白皮书中所讲：

    “中国在非洲大规模经济投入所引发的普遍关注……似乎表明，非洲在某种程度上对于中国‘举足轻重’。实际上，非洲仅占中国总体海外经济活动的很小一部分：中国向非洲投资仅占其全球投资的3%，中非贸易也只占其国际贸易的5%。”

    而且，这些投资和贸易主要集中在资源开采行业。这一点对于美国也同样适用：孙云指出，美非贸易近期下滑与美国能源产量激增更为相关。由于美国国内生产更多的石油与天然气，它从非洲进口的需求降低。但占非洲对外贸易大部分的此类资源开采行业并非是那种通常会引领经济发展的行业。要发展经济，非洲国家必须把从这些行业获得的利润重新投入到广泛造福于民众的基础设施和经济发展中去，并且帮助缓和从农业向以制造业为基础的经济转变。

    这是荷兰研究者在去年发布的《亚洲虎，非洲狮》（Asian Tigers, African Lions）报告中提出的建议, 这项持续5年的广泛研究调查了成功的东南亚国家和贫穷的非洲国家之间的发展差异。研究者发现，亚洲发展模式致力于逐步增加贫穷农村地区的投资，帮助民众慢慢提高农业生产力，解放部分民众寻求教育机会，最终离开农村到经济更为活跃的地区。

    “My view is the more the merrier. When I was in Africa, the question of China often came up, and my attitude was every country that sees investment opportunities and is willing to partner with African countries should be welcomed. The caution is to make sure that African governments negotiate a good deal with whoever they’re partnering with. And that is true whether it’s the United States; that’s true whether it’s China.”

    This is in stark contrast with the sort of rhetoric that the president himself has used, as he has often talked about the need to “win the future” by out-educating, out-innovating, and out-competing the Indians and the Chinese. And it’s not just the Obama Administration that likes to paint China as a competitor rather than a collaborator, as American politicians tend to describe the world in stark, competitive terms during election season and during high profile events like the State of the Union. But the president appears to understand that the world is a bit more complicated than an economic football game. The above quote suggests that he believes that African economic development would be good for America even if it’s not American firms doing the development, as a vibrant Africa could be an excellent destination for American exports.

    China, for its part, has approached the U.S. to work in tandem on infrastructure and development projects in Africa.

    That being said, it would behoove Americans for U.S. companies to invest even more in Africa. Studies show that firms that invest abroad are more likely to spend money and create jobs at home as well. Furthermore, American companies are likely to export more to countries with which they already have a history of partnership.

    The more complicated question is whether all this investment is actually good for Africans. There has been much made in the press about China’s involvement with Africa, even though the relationship is still rather limited in scope. As Brookings’ Yun Sun wrote in a recent white paper,

    “The popular focus on China’s vast economic endeavors in Africa … seems to suggest that Africa is somehow ‘critical’ for China. In reality, Africa accounts for only a tiny percentage of China’s overall foreign economic activities: China’s investment in and trade with Africa represents 3 percent and 5 percent of its global investment and trade, respectively.”

    And this investment and trade is focused mainly in the resource-extraction industries. This is also true for the U.S.: Sun points out that the recent decline in trade between the U.S. and Africa has much more to do with the explosion in U.S. energy production than anything else. Since the U.S. is producing much more of its own oil and natural gas, it has less of a need to import it from Africa. But resource-extraction industries of the sort that make up most of Africa’s foreign trade aren’t the kind that usually lead to economic development. To do this, African nations must reinvest the profits coming from these industries into infrastructure and economic development that will broadly benefit its population and help ease the transition from agricultural to manufacturing-based economies.

    This is the advice that Dutch researchers offered in an extensive five-year study released last year called Asian Tigers, African Lions, which looked at the differences in development between successful Southeast Asian countries and poor African ones. The researchers found that the Asian model of development focused on making incremental investments in poor rural areas that allowed populations to slowly improve agricultural productivity, which then freed the population to seek educational opportunities and ultimately leave rural areas for more economically vibrant regions.