China’s corporate governance standards fall
中国公司治理退步
广州投资翻译公司：亚洲公司治理协会研究显示，中国股票市场上的行为标准大幅下滑，而日本、台湾、印度和韩国等地标准却在提高。
China’s attempts to open up its equity markets to foreign investors could be undermined by the country’s deteriorating standards of corporate governance.
中国的公司治理标准不断恶化，可能削弱其向境外投资者开放本国股票市场的努力。广州投资翻译公司。
In recent years Beijing has pushed for its $7.5tn mainland A-shares market to be incorporated into the widely followed MSCI Emerging Market index, which could open the door to hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign portfolio investment. Many commentators expect MSCI to grant approval next year after turning China down in June.
近年来，北京一直在推动7.5万亿美元市值的内地A股市场被纳入广受关注的明晟新兴市场指数(MSCI Emerging Markets Index)，这可能会使A股市场迎来规模庞大的境外证券投资资金。许多评论人士预计，在今年6月拒绝中国之后，MSCI将在明年6月把中国A股纳入该指数。
China has also started to open up its market through such measures as Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect, a similar link for the Shenzhen market, due by the end of the year, and the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor scheme, all of which allow foreign investors to buy into mainland Chinese stocks.
中国也通过诸如沪港通、计划年底启动的深港通、以及合格境外机构投资者(QDII)机制等措施，逐步开放A股市场。这些都是允许外国投资者买入中国内地股票的渠道。
However, biennial research by the Hong Kong-based Asian Corporate Governance Association, a non-profit organisation, suggests standards of behaviour in China’s equity market are plunging, even as they are improving in regional rivals such as Japan, Taiwan, India and South Korea, threatening to deter foreign investors increasingly focused on governance issues.
但是，香港非营利组织——亚洲公司治理协会(ACGA)的双年度研究报告表明，中国股票市场上的行为标准出现大幅下滑，而日本、台湾、印度和韩国等多个地区竞争对手的标准却在提高。这可能让越来越关注治理问题的外国投资者对中国市场望而却步。广州投资翻译公司。
“The overall effect of China going into the MSCI would be disastrous,” says JP Smith, partner at Ecstrat, an investment consultancy. “Ill-informed investors buying the index for asset allocation reasons would be exposed to companies with terrible governance. There is no way MSCI should consider adding China to the index.”
“中国股市被纳入MSCI指数总体上将是灾难性的，”投资咨询公司Ecstrat的合伙人JP•史密斯(JP Smith)说，“出于资产配置原因而买入指数的消息不灵通的投资者，将承受治理水平极差的公司所带来的相关风险。MSCI绝对不应考虑把中国股市纳入其新兴市场指数。”
“Minority shareholders are just there as a potential source of cash. There is really not a reason for them to be acknowledged at all,” he adds. “Governance has definitely been getting worse.”
“小股东只是作为潜在资金来源而存在，完全没有理由让他们得到认可，”他接着说，“治理当然越来越糟。”
In its 2016 Corporate Governance Watch report, the ACGA awarded China an overall mark of just 43 per cent, continuing the country’s decline from a high of 49 per cent in 2010.
在《2016年公司治理观察》报告中，ACGA给予中国的总体评分只有43%。中国在2010年取得49%的最高分，此后一直在下降。
In contrast, India, ranked level with China in 2010, has risen to a record high reading of 55 per cent, while a swath of other countries in East and Southeast Asia stretched their lead over China further still, as the table shows.
相比之下，2010年与中国排名齐平的印度，其评分已上升到55%的历史最高点，而东亚和东南亚的许多其他国家，进一步扩大了对中国的领先优势，如表所示。广州投资翻译公司。
“There was a time, around 2010, when corporate governance reform in China was progressing at such a steady rate that we half-jokingly suggested it might catch up with Hong Kong in 2022. Those days are long gone,” says Li Rui, an analyst at the ACGA
“曾有一段时间，在2010年左右，中国公司治理改革以平稳的步伐不断取得进步，乃至我们半开玩笑地说，或许到2022年中国内地就能赶上香港了。那段日子早已经过去了，”ACGA的分析师Li Rui表示。
“China’s score has instead been on a downward trend in recent years and it is hard to see what will change in the near future.”
“近年来中国的得分一直呈下降趋势，在不久的将来很难看到有什么变化。”
The ACGA argues that China’s political and regulatory environment has deteriorated particularly sharply since 2010, as the second chart indicates.
ACGA认为，自2010年以来，中国的政治和监管环境恶化得尤其厉害。
Ms Li cites setbacks such as the circuit breaker temporarily imposed on the stock markets in January to attempt to slow a market sell-off, which was a “well-documented disaster, causing panic in China and around the world”, and Beijing’s tendency to implement periodic moratoriums on flotations, which “have done more harm than good, undermining both market stability and the value of the two stock exchanges as capital raising venues”.
Li Rui列举了一些退步现象，例如在1月份为了遏制股市抛售而短暂实施的熔断机制——这是一场“证据充分的灾难，在中国和世界各地引起了恐慌”。还有，北京方面倾向于每过一段时间就暂停IPO，此举“弊大于利，损害了市场稳定性和两个证交所作为资本募集场所的价值”。广州投资翻译公司。
She is also critical of the weakness of measures to reform state-owned enterprises, which have not led to an infusion of private shareholders, lessened government intervention or created more diversified boards or better governed companies, as some hoped.
她也批评了国企改革措施的缺陷。这些措施没有像有些人希望的那样，吸收私人股东加入、让政府减少干预，或者打造出更多元化的董事会或治理水平更高的公司。
“Talk of SOE reform led to a surge in the market, but most people would acknowledge that reform was a complete chimera,” says Mr Smith.
“国业改革的话题导致了市场的大幅上涨，但大多数人会承认，国企改革是一场彻头彻尾的幻想，”史密斯说。
Moreover, China’s rating for the strength of its corporate governance rules and practices has fallen to the lowest level since the ACGA initiated its survey in 2003.
此外，中国在公司治理规则和实践方面的评分，已下降至自ACGA于2003年开始此项调查以来的最低水平。广州投资翻译公司。
Ms Li criticises Beijing for its stalled attempts to update its Corporate Governance Code, which dates to 2002, despite the fact that “most Asian markets have revised their codes once, if not twice, since then”.
Li Rui对北京方面拖延修订2002年的《上市公司治理准则》提出了批评，而“自2002年以来，大多数亚洲市场已修订了一至两次治理准则”。
She also points to problems with board composition and independence, arguing that “the general consensus is that most independent directors are still just ‘vases’ in boards, there to add colour, not to object to decisions or provide useful suggestions”. This is largely because they are typically appointed or nominated by executive directors or the chairman, rather than general shareholders, so are not genuinely independent or committed to representing minority shareholders’ interests.
她还指出了董事会人员构成和独立性的问题，认为“普遍共识是，大多数独立董事仍然只是摆在董事会里的‘花瓶’”，他们仅仅增添色彩，不会反对董事会的决定或提出有用的建议”。这主要是因为，他们通常是由执行董事或董事长而不是全体股东任命或提名的，所以不可能真正独立，或致力于代表小股东的利益。
China has at least managed to maintain its score for enforcement at its 2014 level. The ACGA accepts that China’s regulators have become more active.
中国起码把执法方面的得分维持在了2014年的水平。ACGA承认，中国监管机构变得更加积极。广州投资翻译公司。
The China Securities Regulatory Commission investigated 71 cases of market manipulation in 2015, a near fourfold increase on 2014. In the first half of 2016 it issued 109 sanctions in 88 general enforcement cases, many concerning insider trading and manipulation, an 85 per cent year-on-year rise, and levied fines totalling Rmb2.55bn ($377m), almost 20 times the level meted out in the first six months of 2015.
2015年，中国证监会(CSRC)调查了71起市场操纵案，几乎是2014年的四倍。2016年上半年，中国证监会对88起案件（许多为内幕交易类案件和市场操纵类案件）作出109份处罚，较去年同期增长近85%，罚没款共计25.54亿元人民币（合3.77亿美元），几乎是去年同期的20倍。
The Shanghai Stock Exchange also issued 22 public reprimands and criticisms in the first half of 2016, a 150 per cent year-on-year rise, with its Shenzhen counterpart issuing 40 sanctions, a 40 per cent rise.
2016年上半年，上交所做出了22次公开谴责和通报批评的处分，比去年同期增加150%；深交所则做出了40次处分决定，同比增加40%。
Despite this, the ACGA said two factors prevented China from raising its enforcement score: insufficient resources for enforcement, with regulatory staff typically inexperienced and too thinly spread; and a lack of participation by investors, particularly domestic institutional investors, in voting and company engagement.
尽管如此，ACGA表示，两个因素妨碍了中国提高执法得分：一是执行资源不足，监管人员通常缺乏经验，太分散；二是在投票和公司参与方面，投资者、特别是国内机构投资者的参与力度不够。广州投资翻译公司。
Mr Smith argues that the clampdown on market manipulation ignored the fact that “the biggest market manipulator is the Chinese government and the Chinese authorities, the so-called ‘national team’, which gobbled up a huge chunk of the market” when stocks crashed in July 2015.
史密斯认为，打击市场操纵行为的措施忽视了一个事实，“最大的市场操纵者是中国政府当局，即所谓的“国家队”——2015年7月股市大跌时，国家队吸纳了占整个市场相当大比例的股票。
These state-owned financial institutions owned 11.9 per cent of the market at the end of 2015, according to Financial Times analysis of data from Wind Information, a research firm, although this figure has since fallen.
英国《金融时报》对研究公司万得资讯(Wind Information)数据的分析显示，2015年底，这些国有金融机构的持股市值占到了股市总市值的11.9%，不过，这一比例之后已有所下降。
Overall, Mr Smith describes the Chinese financial system as “crony entrepreneurialism” with a high degree of state ownership (56 per cent by market capitalisation by his calculations) and strong government control even of companies “purported to be run by entrepreneurs”.
总体而言，史密斯将中国的金融体系描述为“裙带企业”，国有程度相当高（依照他的计算，占据市值的56%），并且政府甚至对“声称是由企业家经营”的公司实施强有力的控制。广州投资翻译公司。
“The system is getting more arbitrary and more authoritarian. Minority shareholders are probably more right to be worried about China than anywhere else,” he adds.
“体制越来越武断，越来越专制。跟任何其他地区相比，中国的小股东很可能更有理由对政府感到担心，”他接着说。
“I think they will do everything they can to make it look as though the A-share market is suitable to be integrated into the MSCI [index]. They talk a good game [but] there is a difference between rhetoric and reality.”
“我认为，他们将竭尽全力让A股市场看起来适合被纳入MSCI(指数）。他们说得很动听，（但）言辞和现实之间有差异。”
Mr Smith fears the problem is much larger than China, however, saying he would “take issue” with the ACGA’s view that governance is broadly improving in other Asian countries.
然而，史密斯担心，问题不只在于中国。他说，他“不认同”ACGA关于其他亚洲国家的治理状况正在普遍改善的观点。广州投资翻译公司。
“The very big picture is that the whole system has been moving in a much more authoritarian direction. It’s not just China,” he says, pointing to developments in the likes of Turkey, Russia, Poland and South Korea.
他表示，“大形势是，整个系统一直在朝着更具威权主义色彩的方向演变。这并非仅仅是中国的情形。”他提到了土耳其、俄罗斯、波兰和韩国等国家出现的变化。
“I think governance is getting much worse and the risks for minority investors generally are increasing; that is why I don’t particularly like emerging markets at the moment,” Mr Smith says.
“我认为，治理越来越糟糕，小股东的风险总体上在增加；这就是目前我不是特别喜欢新兴市场的原因，“史密斯说。
“Generally everywhere since the global financial crisis the idea that you move in a more liberal direction towards more dispersed control systems and minority investors having a lot of say has gone backwards pretty much everywhere.
“总体说来，自从全球金融危机以来，在各个新兴市场，关于自由化程度提高、管控制度变得更为零散、少数股东拥有很大发言权的想法在各地都有所消退。广州投资翻译公司。
“Governments are increasingly intervening in a way that disadvantages minority shareholders. I have been a big believer in indexation [via passive funds] but now is the time not to index EM portfolios. The index players have no choice [what stocks to buy],” Mr Smith adds.
“政府越来越多地以不利于小股东利益的方式进行干预。我历来推崇指数化（通过被动型基金），但现在不是指数化投资于新兴市场组合的合适时机。指数玩家（对于买什么股票）没有选择，“史密斯接着说。
