中国国有汽车公司不能再靠合资谋生，必须提升竞争力。否则，它们究竟是中国经济持久发展的一个祝福还是诅咒？ 翻翻最近在西方主流商业媒体上刊登的文章，人们可能会有理由相信，国有企业（SOE）是拖累中国经济的主要原因。换句话来说，这些西方媒体声称国有企业是一个诅咒。
照此逻辑推理到汽车行业，似乎意味着—只要民营企业不与有国家做强大后盾的国有企业竞争，它们一定能够茁壮成长并做强做大。
在我看来，这些西方主流媒体把国际汽车产业描绘得过于简单，而且想法根本不切实际，完全忽略了今天的现实。
汽车行业对每个国家的国内就业都有深远的影响，也因此一直都是高度政治化的。即使到了今天，经过几十年的放松管制和私有化，世界排名前三的汽车制造商至少有两家也部分由国家来控制的。丰田虽说是一家独立汽车公司，但很长一段时间也受益于被保护的国内市场。菲亚特、标致、现代、起亚等大致也如此。
我宁愿认为，国家干预与大刀阔斧的改革给了大众集团以及新通用汽车新生的机会，并有可能写就一段持久的成功故事。然而，每一个由政府支持的成功故事背后，也都有通过这种或那种形式来吸纳纳税人的钱以渡过难关的事实。
如果现在再回头去看中国国有企业刚开始的那段日子，国企是被祝福的，因为国家可以直接干预，从而加快形成合资企业的过程，这些合资公司的背后有强大的中国政府支持，保证了他们对外国投资者更具有吸引力。
因此，一般来说，如果汽车企业有政府的支持不是一件坏事。关键是，要确保能像大众集团（下萨克森州的汉诺威政府拥有20%的股份）或韩国企业（得到隐藏在背后政府的支持）那样，而不是用一种笨法子来管理。
培养成功国有企业的关键，是要把钱投在好公司和有潜力的倡议上（例如联合研究未来技术、商业园区、支持经济发展的基础设施等），而不是给要失败的公司注入资金，这相当于把纳税人的钱扔在水里。
中国需要解决的关键问题是如何使国有汽车制造商具有竞争力水平，而不仅仅坐免费车，通过其合资伙伴来享受其带来的利润。
韩国起亚和三星的任人唯才的做法，是个好例子。三星每个生产单元相关的劳动力成本比起美国和日本来较低，这当然与它战略性的地理位置有关，也与它在人才的聘用和评价体系有关系。三星任人唯才，通过奖励政策来保证员工福利和员工家庭的利益，让员工专注于工作和创新。勤奋的员工随时准备加班，省去了雇佣更多员工造成的人力资源浪费。
德国的成功故事与中产阶级的崛起密切相关。大多数德国公司是中小型规模企业，被誉为“Mittelstand”。这个德语单词，不仅指德国中小型企业，也指中产阶级商务人士，他们雇佣了德国大约三分之二的劳动力。而今天的Mittelstand，占约一半的德国生产总值。
随着经济增长的放缓和自主品牌市场份额的迅速下滑，中国现在正面临最困难的时期，它呼唤经济改革：飞跃中等收入的陷阱。
美国的例子显示，对保持并增加就业率来说，是否拥有国内汽车制造商并不是很重要。随着进口税和经济刺激政策，美国能够很容易吸引劳动密集型的外商，来美国投资建厂。
但中国需要考虑的是，德国和日本的实力是建立在强大的中产阶级之上的。为了让中产阶级蓬勃发展，需要很多中小型企业，其巨大的价值链和在科技领域的创新对汽车行业是一个重要支持。
考虑到国有汽车企业纯粹的市场规模，倘若它们万一崩盘，相对于较小的国家来说，中国倒不至于立刻出现严重情形。然而失去汽车产业所关联的国内中小型企业，却对中国经济和产业升级是更大的威胁，这完全可以让中国处于中等收入的陷阱。
提高国有企业竞争力的关键是，要让政府拥有相对较小数额的股份，并在背后支持企业（如之前讲到的大众集团），太多的政府干预让公司不容易创新，因为每一个决定都意味着花掉大量纳税人的钱。当然，中国同时也可以借鉴韩国三星的成功经验，实施任人唯才的聘用和评价体系，通过奖励政策来保证员工福利和员工家庭的利益，让员工专注于创新和提高生产效率，从而让国有企业的存在成为中国经济持久发展的祝福。
SOEs： Bless or curse？
China needs to figure out how to bring SOE carmakers up to a competitive level and not just get a free ride through the profits their joint venture partners bring.
By looking through most recent articles in western business media one might have reasons to believe that strong state owned Enterprises （SOE） are the main reasons to hold back China’s economy. In other words， they claim that SOEs are a curse.
Extrapolated to the automotive industry this would mean as soon as wholly private owned companies are allowed to do business without state-backed competition they would thrive.
In my opinion this paints a rather simplistic and unrealistic picture of the international automotive industry and completely ignores today’s realities.
The automotive industry with its far-reaching impacts on domestic labor markets has been always highly political. Even today， after decades of deregulation and privatization， two out of the Top3 carmakers are at least partially state-controlled. Toyota， while fully independent， also has for a long time benefited from a protected domestic market. The same is true for many other automotive companies， for instance， Fiat， Peugeot， Hyundai and Kia. I would rather argue that VW and the new GM are amazing examples how state intervention together with drastic reform can lead to long lasting success stories. But for every government backed success story there are also those who repeatedly require taxpayer money （in one form or another） to stay afloat.
If you now look back at China， when China started the SOEs they considered them a blessing， as they allowed for direct state intervention and thus speeded up the processes of forming JVs. State guarantees behind these companies made them much more attractive for foreign investors.
So in general having a state-backed car companies is not a bad thing. The trick is to make sure you manage it like Volkswagen （20% of the shares are owned by State of Lower Saxony， Hanover） or the Koreans （which receive hidden government support） and not to do it in the stupid way.
The art of raising successful SOEs is by throwing smart money at good companies and initiatives （e.g. Joint-research of future technologies， business parks， infrastructure measures that support economic development） and not just give cash infusions to failing companies， which equals to throwing dumb money around.
China needs to figure out how to bring SOE carmakers up to a competitive level and not just get a free ride through the profits their joint venture partners bring.
South Korea’s meritocratic approach with Kia and Samsung is also a good example. Samsung has a relatedly lower labor cost for each production unit because its meritocratic hiring and evaluation system， reward policies， employees’ welfare and benefits to employees’ family allow employees to focus on innovation and productivity. Hardworking employees are always ready to work overtime， thereby eliminating wastage of resources needed to source for additional help or last minute hire. Also， its strategic location in Korea translates into some savings in labor cost compared to companies that operate in Japan and US.
The success story of Germany is closely related to the rise of the middle-class. Most German firms are small to medium-sized enterprises， known in German as the “Mittelstand”. The German word refers not only to small and medium-sized businesses， but also to a common work ethic and to the middle-class business people who employ about two-thirds of the German work force. Today， the Mittelstand accounts for about half of the total industry production of Germany alone.
With slowing economy growth and rapidly declining market share of domestic carmakers， China is now facing the most difficult time of it’s economic reform： the leap over the middle income trap. As the example of the US shows， having domestic carmakers isn’t that essential for keeping employment numbers high. With import-taxes and incentivization it is easily possible to attract foreign OEMs to locate their labor-intensive production in your country.
However what China needs to consider is that the strength of Germany and Japan is built on a strong middle-class. In order for this to flourish you need many SMEs. The automotive industry with its huge value chains and large number of involved science fields is the perfect support for growing a middle-class.
Considering it’s sheer market size a collapse of domestic carmakers would not be as severe as in smaller countries. However what China would lose is the tailwind the automotive industry brings to raise domestic SME’s. This would be even more dangerous for China’s economy and industry integration， and definitely might keep China in the middle-income trap.
The art of raising SOE’s competitiveness is to let government own a relatively small amount of the shares and support behind （like VW group）， because with too much government intervention the company is not easy to innovate， because every decision means lots of taxpayers’ money. China could also learn from the successful Korean Samsung experience， implementing meritocratic hiring and evaluation systems， reward policies， employees’ welfare and benefits to employees’ family， which allow employees to focus on innovation and productivity， which in the end make the SOEs a long-lasting blessing.
