阿里與中國兵工集團成立合資公司
HONG KONG — Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce titan, has always had a capricious streak when it comes to strategic investments and acquisitions.
香港——在戰略投資和收購方面，中國電子商務巨頭阿里巴巴的表現一向難以捉摸。
In the last two years, it has put money into insurance and finance, motion pictures, brick-and-mortar retailing and even a soccer franchise.
過去的兩年裏，它投資了保險和金融、電影、實體零售，甚至還有一家足球俱樂部。
Now it is cooperating with yet another unlikely partner: a Chinese state-owned arms and machinery producer, the China North Industries Corporation, or Norinco.
現在，它與另一個看似不可能的公司成爲了合作伙伴：中國兵器工業集團，一家國有武器和機械生產商。
In a post on its website on Wednesday, Norinco said each of the two would hold a stake of 50 percent in Qianxun Weizhi Internet, a joint venture worth 2 billion renminbi, or about $310 million.
本週三，兵器工業集團在官網上的一篇文章中表示，它和阿里巴巴合資成立千尋位置網絡有限公司，公司註冊資本20億元人民幣，雙方各佔50%的股權。
Norinco — which has faced nonproliferation sanctions from the United States government over the last decade — appears to be an odd partner for Alibaba. But the cooperation shows how China’s largest Internet companies are trying to improve government relations by supporting state projects.
在過去十年中，兵器工業集團曾遭到美國政府的防擴散制裁。對於阿里巴巴而言，它似乎是個奇怪的合作伙伴。但從這個合作中可以看出，中國最大的互聯網公司如何通過支持國有項目來爭取改善政府關係。
In this case, the project is Beidou, a satellite navigation system that is China’s domestically developed answer to GPS.
這個合作的項目是“北斗”，一套中國自主開發的衛星導航系統，相當於GPS。
The new company, according to the post, will build applications and technology to support and work with the system. It will also show Alibaba’s support of broader Chinese industrial policy.
網站上的文章顯示，新公司將構建應用程序和技術，來爲北斗系統提供支持和合作。這也展示了阿里巴巴對更廣泛的中國產業政策的支持。
Beidou has high-level government support and has attracted billions in investment, partly because of Beijing’s concerns that the United States could disable GPS signals in China, damaging the capabilities of its satellite-guided weapons.
北斗系統獲得了政府高層的支持，吸引了數以十億計美元的投資，原因之一是北京擔心美國關閉在中國的GPS信號，削弱中國衛星制導武器的能力。
To ensure the viability of Beidou, the Chinese government has sought to increase the number of commercial users of the technology, even though the system is incomplete and GPS has a 95 percent share of the Chinese market.
即使北斗系統並不完整，而且GPS在中國佔有95%的市場份額，但爲了確保北斗的可行性，中國政府一直努力提高這項技術的商業用戶數量。
The Chinese authorities have been slowly rolling out new rules that mandate the system’s use. In 2013, China’s transportation authority ordered all long-distance buses and vehicles transporting “dangerous articles” in nine provinces to install the system. Heavy trucks must also have the system, and the government has installed it in more than 50,000 Chinese fishing boats.
中國政府一直在緩步出臺強制使用北斗系統的新規。2013年，中國交通運輸管理局要求九個省的所有長途客車和“危險物品”運送車輛安裝該系統。重型卡車也必須安裝北斗系統。此外，還有逾5萬艘中國漁船在政府要求下安裝了它。
“Alibaba Group participated in this location-based services project in light of our strength in cloud computing and big data,” Alibaba’s spokeswoman, Melanie Lee, wrote in an email. “We hope to be able to provide businesses and developers with better location-based services.”
“阿里巴巴集團確實參與位置網項目，基於在雲計算和大數據方面積累的能力，”阿里巴巴發言人梅拉妮·李(Melanie Lee)在郵件中寫道。“希望爲企業和開發者提供更優質的位置服務。”
In the early 2000s, Norinco was hit with sanctions by the Bush administration for the transfer of dual-use technologies to a company involved in Iran’s ballistic missile program. According to the State Department, the sanctions lapsed in the mid-2000s.
21世紀初，兵器工業集團因將軍民兩用技術轉移給一家參與伊朗彈道導彈項目的公司，遭到布什政府的制裁。據美國國務院，制裁措施已於2000年代中期失效。
Norinco is one of China’s largest arms exporters and more recently attracted headlines when it delivered the first part of an arms shipment to South Sudan last summer. The Chinese government halted the remainder of the order.
兵器工業集團是中國最大的武器出口商，最近因爲去年夏季向南蘇丹運送首批武器成爲新聞頭條。中國政府叫停了剩餘的訂單。
