中国对美国公司加强监管：消费者获益

    部分媒体报道把车企反垄断调查描绘成一场突如其来的排外行为，并暗示这是中国国家主席习近平为巩固政权所采取的行动。但多家企业现在已意识到这类调查将持续一段时间。负责部分反垄断法执行的中国国家发展和改革委员会（NDRC）声称，其中一些调查早在2011年就已展开。而习近平出任中国国家主席是在之后的2012年。

    这一系列调查呈现出一种有针对性的打击模式，但从许多方面来看，这样做的原因很简单——监管部门现在开始着手规范市场，以达到其它发达国家的市场行为标准。中国国内的企业也成为调查目标，例如宝马公司的一些经销商其实隶属于当地企业。然而，这些情况在西方的新闻里并不会被大肆报道。

    的确，监管者需要让他们的调查和裁决更加透明化；他们应该允许律师代表被调查企业参与到判决结果的会议当中。而很多不透明的调查，已经给外界一种政府暗中制定决策并强迫品牌降价的印象。

    最后，尽管这些调查目前影响了企业的利润率，也令管理人员惶惶不可终日，不过从长远来看，这将有助于提升中国乃至西方汽车品牌整体的盈利能力。

    过去十年间，中国的消费者由于担心食品质量差、产品安全标准低，所以宁愿尽己所能去购买最贵的产品。而对于一些重要的产品，比如婴儿配方奶粉，消费者往往会回避那些价格更实惠的品牌，因为他们认为便宜就等同于食品安全没有保障。导致一些高价的超高档品牌占据了市场，而其它不属于高端定位的品牌则别无选择，只能通过提高价格来吸引消费者。

    建立更好的产品安全问责机制，可以让消费者对产品质量标准更有信心，在决定购买意向时不再只看价格，综合考虑其它因素。这样一来，品牌也将得到更多机会开拓新的市场定位，而不是只在价格上你追我赶。（财富中文网）

    雷小山是战略市场情报公司中国市场研究集团（China Market Research Group）的创始人兼董事总经理。他的新书《中国山寨走向终结：创意，创新，以及个人主义在亚洲崛起》预计将于今年10月出版。

    Some media reports have painted the wave of investigations as a sudden anti-foreign crackdown, suggesting that it is a move by President Xi Jinping to consolidate power. However, companies have been aware that investigations like these would be coming for some time now. China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the body charged with enforcing a portion of the anti-monopoly law, announced the start of many of these investigations in 2011. Xi did not take office until 2012 – a year later.

    The series of investigations has given the appearance of a targeted crackdown, though in many ways the reason for this is simply that regulators are only now catching up with the task of regulating the market and reaching standards of market behavior held by other advanced economies. Domestic Chinese firms have also been targeted – many of the BMW dealers targeted for instance are locally owned by Chinese entrepreneurs, not BMW itself. However, these cases have not been in Western news as much.

    It is true that regulators need to be more transparent in their investigations and rulings; they should allow lawyers representing the firms under investigation into meetings when decisions and judgments are made. The opaque way many investigations have been carried out has given the appearance of the government making decisions in back rooms to strong-arm brands into lowering their prices.

    Finally, although the investigations are hurting profit margins and making executives nervous for now, in the long-term, this will help overall profitability for Chinese and Western brands alike.

    Over the past decade, Chinese consumers have been so worried about poor food and product safety standards that they tend to buy the most expensive items they could afford. For key items, such as infant milk formula, consumers shun more affordable brands because they equate lower prices with lower safety. As a result, a few ultra-premium players with high prices have dominated the market, while other brands that aren’t naturally premium-positioned have had little choice but to use high pricing to attract consumer interest.

    Promoting better accountability on safety will allow consumers to be more confident in product quality standards and make decisions based on other factors than simply price. In turn, that will give brands the opportunity to carve out new market niches rather than race each other to the top.

    Shaun Rein is the founder and managing director of China Market Research Group, a strategic market intelligence firm focused on China. He is author of the forthcoming book, The End of Copycat China: the Rise of Creativity, Innovation, and Individualism in Asia, which is expected to release in October.