中國的下一個收購目標 希臘的戰略性港口

As voters the world over know, political campaign promises can fly out the window when they hit cold hard reality. So it is in Greece: Just look at the major port of Pireaus, which has served as Athens’ shipping harbor since the ancient Greeks ruled the seas 2,500 years ago.

全世界的選民都知道，政客在競選時的承諾是沒法當真的，一旦碰上殘酷的現實，那些甜言蜜語就飛到九宵雲外去了。希臘就是這樣：只要看看比雷埃夫斯港的命運就可以了。早在2500年前，當古希臘統治海洋的時候，它就是雅典的主要貨運港口。

Sadly, the glorious Greek Empire is long gone. And now its descendants in power in Athens are close to selling off Pireaus Port to a current-day imperial giant: China.

悲哀的是，輝煌燦爛的古希臘早已湮沒在歷史的長河中。如今的雅典執政者正打算把比雷埃夫斯港賣給當今世界的強國之一——中國。

The sale, if it goes through as expected, would be a stunning political about-face. It would reverse one of the key promises of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ left-wing Syriza party, which won the Greek elections back in January, partly by vowing to halt the sale of Greece’s strategic assets—one of the biggest being Piraeus Port—as part of his party’s defiance against austerity demands from international creditors. For months since, Greek officials have been loath to admit that their campaign promise will be impossible to keep; Economy Minister George Stathakistold reporters in late February that the port would “remain permanently under state majority holding…as we made clear from the first day.”

如果這筆交易成功達成，它將是一次令人震驚的政治大變臉。今年1月份，總理阿萊克斯o齊普拉斯領銜的希臘左翼同盟之所以成功贏得大選，部分原因就是左翼同盟曾向選民誓稱，絕不靠出賣國有戰略資產向國際債權人還債（其中最大的一筆資產就是比雷埃夫斯港）。大選後的幾個月，希臘官方仍不願坦承他們不可能遵守當初的承諾。希臘經濟部長喬治o斯泰撒基斯2月曾對媒體表示，比雷埃夫斯港“將永遠處於國家多數控股下……就像我們一開始就闡明的那樣。”

But what is much clearer now is that the Greek government’s control over their major port is about to end. As part of Syriza’s deal last month with the IMF, European Commission and the European Central Bank to repay about EUR240 billion ($254 billion at the current rate) that Greece borrowed back in 2010, Tsipras was compelled to leave Piraeus Port up for sale.

但現如今，局勢已變得分外明顯：希臘政府對比雷埃夫斯港的控制權即將終結。根據左翼同盟政府上個月與國際貨幣基金組織、歐盟委員會和歐洲央行達成的協議，希臘政府需償還它於2010年借貸的2400億歐元債款（以當前匯率來算約爲2540億美元）。在這種情況下，齊普拉斯幾乎是不得不出售比雷埃夫斯港來籌措債款了。

For China, that is excellent news, since its state-run shipping behemoth, COSCO Group, is in pole position to snap up the 67% of Pireaus Port the Greek government controls. Back in 2008, COSCO leased one of two Piraeus terminals in a 35-year operating lease worth about EUR490 million. For Greece, the infusion of money was a godsend. And for China, the deal brought advantages it has sought in Europe for years: A role in operating Europe’s infrastructure as a partner.

對於中國來說，這是一個絕好的消息，因爲國有航運公司中國遠洋運輸集團極有可能拿下希臘政府控制的67%的比雷埃夫斯港股權。早在2008年，中遠集團就曾以約4.9億美元的價格租下了比雷埃夫斯港兩個集裝箱碼頭中的一個，租期爲35年。這筆錢對希臘政府來說不啻於雪中送炭。另一方面，這筆交易也爲中國提供了一個它已經苦苦尋找多年的機會，即在歐洲的基礎設施領域扮演一個運營夥伴的角色。

In fact, Pireaus is key to far bigger plans China has for Europe, including huge new trade with some of the E.U.’s fastest growing markets. “There was speculation that a massive investment in Pireaus might open a whole new entry point into Europe from the South,” Alan Murphy, CEO of SeaIntel, a maritime consultancy in Copenhagen, tells FORTUNE. That investment, he says, will be supported by “growth markets in central and Eastern Europe.”

事實上，中國有一個更加龐大的歐洲計劃，而比雷埃夫斯港正是一枚關鍵的棋子：中國可以利用這個重要港口，與歐盟的一些經濟增長最快的國家開展鉅額貿易。哥本哈根航運諮詢公司SeaIntel的CEO艾倫o墨菲對《財富》表示：“有一種推測認爲，對比雷埃夫斯港的鉅額投資，將會打開一個從南方進入歐洲的新大門。”他還表示，這筆投資將會受到“中東歐增長型市場的支持。”

China’s Greek plans are already evident: Huawei now runs a logistics center in Pireaus Port, and a Chinese-built rail link is being constructed to connect Pireaus with Central Europe—a route that could trim several days off the regular journey container trucks and freight trains take from Europe’s three major ports of Hamburg, Rotterdam, and Antwerp. “Look at the map: Greece is really strategically placed,” says BlankaKoleníková, Senior Analyst for the region’s economy for the consultancy IHS, by phone from London. ”It’s the gateway between Middle East, the Balkans, the E.U., so from the Chinese point of view it’s a really good entry point. To have more leverage in Greece it would be highly desirable for China.”

中國佈局希臘的計劃已經相當明顯：華爲公司已經在比雷埃夫斯港建立了一個物流中心。此外，中資企業鋪設的連接比雷埃夫斯港和中歐地區的鐵路目前正在施工，這條鐵路將爲來自歐洲三大港口（漢堡、鹿特丹、安特衛普）的貨車和貨運客車節省幾天的時間。諮詢公司IHS的歐洲經濟高級分析師布蘭卡o庫倫尼科瓦在倫敦接受電話採訪時表示：“看看地圖就知道，希臘的戰略位置非常重要。它是中東、巴爾幹和歐盟之間的咽喉。所以從中國的觀點看，它是一個極好的進入點。中國要想在希臘取得更大的影響力，比雷埃夫斯港就將是非常重要的。”

Since COSCO took control of Piraeus’s Pier II, the company has been massively upgrading the port’s outdated crane system and it has built a new deep-water dock capable of accommodating today’s giant new container ships. As a result, traffic in Piraeus has rocketed to about 3 million containers a year. COSCO says it aims to double that by next year if it wins the bid to operate the rest of the port. If it succeeds, Pireaus could feasibly become as big a container port as Hamburg, Rotterdam and Antwerp, all of which sit across the continent.

自從中遠集團接入比雷埃夫斯港的2號碼頭以來，該集團已對該碼頭老舊的吊裝系統進行了大規模升級，並且新修建了一個深水船塢，用來停泊現代化的新型巨輪。因此，比雷埃夫斯港的年吞吐量已經飆升至300萬隻集裝箱。中遠集團表示，如果該集團成功收購了比雷埃夫斯港的其它部分，它的吞吐量明年將有望再翻一番。一旦實現這個目標，比雷埃夫斯港的貨運能力將不亞於歐洲三大港，而後者均座落於歐洲大陸的另一端。

But that is only part of the story. In fact, Piraeus’s bifurcated operation has become a study in contrasts between two worlds: China’s hyper-efficiency and the deep management problems that beset cash-strapped Greece.

不過這僅僅是其中的一方面。另一方面，比雷埃夫斯港這幾年“一港兩制”的經歷也展現了兩個世界的鮮明對比：中國的效率超高，而缺乏資金的希臘存在嚴重的管理問題。

On the one side of the port stand the two quiet piers, still in Greek government hands. On the other is COSCO’s operation, which has become a magnet for monster ships needing state-of-the-art loading gear to move millions of containers. “We are simply twice as fast,” COSCO’s Piraeus chief executive, Chinese Navy captainFu Cheng Qui, told the German magazine Der Spiegelthis week. “We can complete 36 container movements per hour, and time is money. Look, Pier I is almost empty,” he told the reporter, looking out the window at the Greek-run side of the port. “That is very sad.”

在比雷埃夫斯港的那一邊，還有兩個靜靜的碼頭仍處於希臘政府的控制下。與那邊的安靜不同，中遠集團的碼頭彷彿是吸引巨型貨輪的磁鐵一般，每年使用先進的吊裝設備忙碌地裝卸數百萬只集裝箱。中遠集團比雷埃夫斯港負責人本週對德國《明鏡週刊》表示：“我們的速度是他們的兩倍。我們每小時可以裝卸36個集裝箱。時間就是金錢。你看，1號碼頭那邊差不多是空的。”他隔着窗子，看着希臘控制的那個碼頭，對記者說：“太可憐了。”

Sad indeed, as much of Greece’s dire situation is. Since being elected, Tsipras and his key ministers have been in constant motion in Brussels, Paris, Moscow—and Beijing—attempting to forge agreements, and to plead for enough time to stave off bankruptcy, and so avoid Greece’s exit from the Eurozone. On Thursday Greece repaid a EUR450 million loan to the IMF with just hours to go before defaulting.

的確是太可憐了，希臘的總體情況也是一樣。自從當選後，齊普拉斯和他的部長們整天在布魯塞爾、巴黎、莫斯科和北京之間穿梭，試圖訂立協議，爭取更多時間避免破產，同時也避免希臘被歐元區“開除”。上週希臘政府剛剛向IMF償還了一筆4.5億美元的貸款，當時離這筆貸款違約只剩下幾個小時。

But there are far more debts to be paid, and Greece’s public deficit is currently about 175% of its GDP. For Tspiras, warding off total bankruptcy has become a lot more urgent—and doable—than implementing the anti-austerity program that catapulted his Syriza party to power. If that means selling Greece’s prized assets to Beijing, it now seems worth ditching his statement that he would hold on to the country’s strategic assets. He would not be the first politician, nor the last, to break his election promises.

當然，等待希臘償還的債務還要多得多，而希臘的財政赤字目前已經達到了GDP的175%。對於齊普拉斯來說，目前更緊迫也更實際的任務，是如何讓希臘避免破產，而不是競選時用來邀買民心的反緊縮政策。如果這意味着希臘不得不把寶貴的資產賣給中國，那麼齊普拉斯丟掉“保衛國有資產”的豪言壯語也是值是的。畢竟違背競選誓詞的政客，他不是第一個，也不會是最後一個。