超级富豪正在影响中国决策

中国一年一度的两会正在举行，其中有一群人非常突出——在近3000名全国人大代表中，有114人登上过胡润中国富豪榜。在作为中国立法机关的全国人民代表大会中，中国富豪所占的比例接近4%。

不过，与以往不同，中国最成功并且人脉广泛的私人企业家，参加全国人民代表大会并不是为了声望或者炫耀，而是希望影响政府的决策，即参政议政。

这是一次重要的进步，尽管政府改革的核心，依旧是强化国有企业发展，为国有企业提供获得资本的优先途径，敦促国有企业进行大规模合并。

但这些来自中国领先的服务与科技部门的私有公司意识到，他们的实力得到了大幅增强。他们清楚，他们才是中国经济转型阶段的主要增长引擎，这令他们拥有了相当大的影响力。

比如，IT公司腾讯的创始人马化腾，据估计他的个人财富达到188亿美元。在2015年全国人民代表大会之前，44岁的马化腾写了一封公开信，呼吁政府制定国家级战略，推动发展互联网经济。几天后，国家总理李克强在政府工作报告中宣布启动“互联网+”战略。

内部人士很快便猜测出这个术语出自何人之手。正是腾讯老板马化腾。他根据公司研究机构提出的理念，从2013年初便开始使用这种说法。虽然马化腾并非党员，但“互联网+”理念的“首创者”这一身份是不可否认的。当然，他的公司在官方消息中否认参与了政府的报告。

今年的全国人大将审议通过下一个五年规划，其中可能会吸收来自马云的私人智库阿里研究院（Ali Research）提出的建议，即将大数据作为经济增长的重要来源。52岁的马云在中国富豪排行榜中名列第二位，是互联网公司阿里巴巴的领导人。与腾讯一样，马云在2007年成立了一家私人智库，用于开发相关的政策建议。

两家公司最初创建私人智库的目的，主要是为了解决与互联网治理相关的立法等问题，但它们的活动也涉及更加广泛的经济和行业政策等问题。其他企业家也不甘落后，纷纷学习“二马”的作法。小米创始人、46岁的雷军最近在呼吁政府修订《公司法》。

而47岁的亿万富翁、网络服务公司百度的CEO李彦宏，则向全国人民代表大会建议，创建一个用于人工智能研究的全国平台。中国最大的私有企业集团和投资公司复星国际，在今年的全国人民代表大会之前，提出了一项有关医疗保健的国家发展战略。

到目前为止，中国的私人企业家尚未形成一个独立的有组织的团体，但他们的影响力正在日益扩大。中国迫切需要他们的专业技术知识，以及他们先进的商业模式与策略。这令他们在面对中国决策者们时，拥有了较大的影响力。

尤其值得一提的原因是，自习近平执政以来，私人研究机构的数量一直在持续增加。相比亲政府的智库，这些新研究机构直接接触决策者的机会更少，但他们的财力更加雄厚，在全球也有更为广泛的人脉。

此外，习近平主席在出访海外时，越来越多地带领优秀企业家随行，这也反映了企业家们在中国政治领域与日俱增的影响力。这一做法，一方面是为了展示这些企业家（和中国）取得的成功，同时也是为了给私人企业家提供更多全球发展机会。

决策者敏锐地认识到，这些优秀公司和企业家们在国内外的持续成功，是决定国家领导层制定的经济转型战略能否成功的关键因素。

对于政府提供给企业的全球扩张方面的支持，许多IT界企业家也心存感激。显然，政府提出的“中国梦”包括鼓励更多公司借鉴阿里巴巴的模式，在国际上取得成功。

但领导层与互联网企业家们之间的蜜月期能够持续多久呢？阿里巴巴创始人马云给出了最好的解释。他在2015年的达沃斯世界经济论坛上表示：“我们要爱政府，但不会嫁给它。”（财富中文网）

潘宇舟为德国柏林墨卡托中国研究中心（Mercator Institute for China Studies，MERICS）中国国内政策项目负责人。石磊为墨卡托中国研究中心研究员。

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

At the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress that begins Saturday, one group clearly stands out – the 114 of the nearly 3,000 delegates of the National People’s Congress (NPC) that are on the Hurun list of richest Chinese. China’s richest people account for close to 4% of the members of the body that officially acts as China’s national legislature.

But in a departure from the past, China’s most successful — and obviously well connected — private entrepreneurs aren’t just there for the prestige or to show off. They want to influence policymaking.

This is an important development, even though the core focus in government reform policies clearly rests on strengthening increasingly feeble state owned enterprises, giving them preferred access to capital and urging them to undertake mega-mergers.

However, the privately owned companies operating in China’s advanced services and technology sectors realize that their hand has been strengthened greatly. They know that they are China’s main engines of growth in a period of economic transition, which gives them considerable power.

Consider the case of the founder of the IT company Tencent, Pony Ma, who has an estimated fortune of $18.8 billion. Ahead of last year’s annual meeting of the National People’s Congress, the 44-year-old wrote an open letter demanding a national strategy for China to advance the digitization of the economy. A few days later, Prime Minister Li Keqiang, as part of his report on the government’s plans and activities, announced the launch of an “Internet Plus” strategy.

Insiders immediately realized who had coined that term. It was none other than Pony Ma, who had started to use that phrase beginning in 2013, based on the concepts developed by his company’s own research institute. Even though Ma is not a member of the CPC, the “paternity” of the “Internet Plus” is undeniable. Officially, of course, his company denied any involvement in the government report.

When the National People’s Congress will pass the new five-year plan in the upcoming session, it will likely also feature the recommendations of Jack Ma’s private think tank, Ali Research, to promote Big Data as an important source of economic growth. Jack Ma, 52, is the second richest Chinese and head of the Internet company Alibaba. As is the case with Tencent, he established a private think tank, in 2007, to develop relevant policy recommendations.

While both of these think tanks were primarily established to deal with issues of Internet governance and legislation on issues of the Internet, their activities also much include broader matters of economic and industrial policy. Other entrepreneurs have been following in the two Mas footsteps. Lei Jun, the 46-year-old founder of Xiaomi, the successful smartphone maker, recently advocated for a revision of China’s Company Law.

Meanwhile, the 47-year-old multi-billionaire Robin Li turn, CEO of Baidu, the web services company, is suggesting the creation of a national platform for artificial intelligence research to the National People’s Congress. And Fosun, the largest privately owned conglomerate and investment company in China, presented a national development strategy for healthcare in advance of this year’s NPC session.

To date, Chinese private entrepreneurs are not an autonomously organized group. But they are nevertheless gaining considerable influence. Their technological know-how is very much in demand, as are their state-of-the-art business models and strategies. This provides them with a lot of clout vis-à-vis the policymakers in general. Not least for that reason, the number of private research institutes has continued to rise ever since Xi Jinping took office. Although these new outfits have less direct access to decision makers than pro-government think tanks, they are much better equipped financially and also better connected globally.

Reflecting the top entrepreneurs’ rise in the Chinese political landscape, President Xi Jinping increasingly takes them along on his trips abroad, both to showcase their (and hence China’s) success and to provide these private entrepreneurs with more global growth opportunities.

Xi is keenly aware that these top companies’ and entrepreneurs’ continued success at home and abroad will be a critical factor in determining whether or not the economic transformation strategy which the leadership has launched will succeed.

Many IT entrepreneurs also appreciate their government’s political support for global expansion. The “China Dream” evidently also includes more internationally successful company modeled after Alibaba.

How far will this process of mutual enchantment between the CPC leadership and the Internet entrepreneurs go? Alibaba founder Jack Ma probably put it best, when he said at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2015: “We want to enchant the government, but we don’t want to marry it.”

Matthias Stepan is head of Chinese Domestic Politics Program at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) in Berlin, Germany. Lea Shih is a research associate at MERICS.