英国金融时报今日发表文章《马云相信国际贸易能够创造一个闪耀的未来》(Alibaba’s founder believes that global trade could create a shining future)指出，马云的美国演讲至少有三点值得关注。
英国金融时报今日发表文章《马云相信国际贸易能够创造一个闪耀的未来》(Alibaba’s founder believes that global trade could create a shining future)指出，马云的美国演讲至少有三点值得关注。
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阿里巴巴创始人马云的这一周可以说是中美两国长久商业贸易往来中最炫耀最令人震撼的一个里程碑。他在纽约经济俱乐部发表了演讲，利用这次机会告诉美国的民众阿里巴巴公司发展的如此迅速，他的原话是：“今年我们（阿里巴巴）的销售额可能会超过沃尔玛”
美国的观众可不会吓破胆，相反他们为马云的精彩演讲而欢呼并大受鼓舞。要说原因？那是因为马云描述了他为阿里巴巴构想的宏伟目标，同时他也展现了一个非常让人震惊又具有超凡魅力的梦想，这个梦想就是怎样利用全球贸易为每个人，当然包括美国人，创造出一个更闪耀的未来！
他敏锐的觉察到：10年以后中国将有5亿人步入中产阶级，他们非常渴望买到美国的产品—我们要做的就是帮助美国的小企业走向中国，并将产品销售到中国。
当然作为公共关系的一角，这次演讲真的是非常精彩。马云想尽可能说服更多的人使用他的平台进行贸易，他希望在几年内阿里巴巴的收入有40%会来自除中国以外的地方，现在这个比例是2%。
千万别把这次演讲看成是一场企业的自我吹嘘。美国众议院正在对是否批准快通道贸易法案进行投票。这个法案如果通过，就能够赋予美国总统奥巴马力量推动跨太平洋伙伴关系等交易。马云这次演讲最震撼之处在于这次演讲如此充满活力又大大方方的给美国民众展示出了他对贸易未来非常乐观的态度。他的演讲也透露出华盛顿现在对贸易趋势发展存在那么多自卫和消极性的论调。换句话说，如果奥巴马在未来几个月想用支持贸易往来的优势来说服选民——例如跨太平洋伙伴关系或其他的此类交易—那他还不如从马云书上借来一段话更具有说服力呢。
这次演讲至少有三点值得我们关注。
首先，向美国观众兜售贸易思维，这个需要与全球中产阶级沟通。安永公司顾问估计现在在新兴市场当中有超过5亿的中产阶级消费者，这个数目预计在未来20年会再增长3亿，达到8亿人。布鲁金斯学会的智囊团们预计出美国到2050年会占世界总中产阶级消费人群的6%，现在这一比例是18%。除此之外，新兴市场在过去二十年已经展示出了惊人的供应力（与西方国家争做工业产地的源头），他们现在能够提供惊人的需求量（对购买美国产品的潜在需求量）。以为中国的企业家站在美国的演讲台上讲出来的要比现在许多美国的领导者讲出来的话更像美国人。
第二点是贸易并不是锦上添花的东西。阿里巴巴知道这些，因为他买卖的是服务和产品。但是如果是奥巴马或者其他的美国人试图“兜售”交易，比如TPP，那么他们通常关注的是工业产品，考虑到生产性就业角色的日趋下降，这就增添了一种貌似退缩的口吻。据一份白宫报告指出，美国已经成为世界上最大的服务出口国。此类出口在过去的34年间翻了7翻，而且这种增长趋势还会继续（虽然很多选民对此知之甚少）。
马云的演讲给我的第三个启示是，他谈的是小企业，虽然这些小企业的出口额不在出口行业中占主流（近期一份布鲁金斯报告显示中型企业站出口销售额的份额仅占11%，而小企业的出口销售额占的就更少了，有约60%的美国中型企业根本都不搞出口。）但是如果让这些中小型企业海外贸易更简便的话，这个增长还是非常具有潜力的。 所以马云所倡导的是美国所有类型企业家（包括农民）都能够通过互联网抓住这次商业梦想，他给美国企业家们畅想的未来用了一连串的排比。
但是要想实现这个愿景，我们还要走许多的路。一方面，马云没有提及的比如知识产权法、劳动权益和汇率操纵等等正是美国政府现在在内部所喋喋不休进行争吵的东西。另一方面，这些新的贸易关系还没有被批准。即使今年年底跨太平洋关系协议通过了，那中国也不在属于这协议中的12个国家之一。贸易障碍还是依然普遍。
虽然前路漫漫，但是关键点还在于一位中国的企业家站在美国的演讲台上给美国民众展示出的阳光乐观以及他所讲述的贸易趋势中那种向善的力量，要比现代许多美国的领导者还要更像美国人。地缘政治每天都在重塑，而马云的这次演讲就是地缘政治重塑中最令人震撼的标志，即使美国华盛顿还是依然成群结队的在贸易争论中喋喋不休下去。
Alibaba’s founder believes that global trade could create a shining future
Jack Ma, Alibaba chief©Bloomberg
his week marked a striking milestone in the long commercial dance between China and the US. Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, the e-commerce group, addressed the Economic Club of New York and used that occasion to reveal that his company is expanding so fast that “this year possibly we [at Alibaba] are going to be bigger than Walmart.”
The American audience did not recoil in horror, as you might expect. Instead they cheered his speech as inspirational. The reason? As Mr Ma described his wild ambitions for Alibaba, he also presented a startlingly charismatic dream about how global trade could create a shining future for everyone, including Americans.
“In 10 years there will be half a billion people who are middle class [in China],” he observed. “[They] are hungry for American [goods] — we will help small businesses in America to go to China and sell.”
As a piece of public relations, it was brilliant. Mr Ma, after all, wants to persuade as many people as possible to use his platform to trade and hopes that within a few years Alibaba will draw 40 per cent of its revenues from outside China, compared to 2 per cent now.
Do not be tempted to dismiss the speech even if it seems like corporate spin. The House of Representatives is preparing to vote on whether to approve a fast-track trade bill that could give President Barack Obama the power to push through deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The most striking thing about Mr Ma’s speech was that it was so vibrantly and unashamedly optimistic about the future of trade.
His speech showed just how defensive and negative so much of the tone in Washington about trade tends to be. To put it another way, if Mr Obama wants to persuade voters about the merits of embracing trade in the coming months — in relation to the TPP deal or anything else — he could do worse than borrow a leaf from Mr Ma’s book.
There at least three points to note. First, to sell the idea of trade to an American audience, you need to talk about the global middle class. Consultants Ernst & Young estimate there are more than 500m middle class consumers in emerging markets and the number is expected to grow by another 3bn in the next two decades. The Brookings Institution think-tank reckons Americans will account for 6 per cent of the world’s middle class consumers by 2050, compared to 18 per cent today. I addition to this, while emerging markets presented a supply shock in the past two decades (by competing with the west as a source of industrial production), they could now provide a demand shock (potentially buying American goods).
A Chinese entrepreneur stood in New York and sounded more American than many modern US leaders
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The second point is that trade is not just about widgets. Alibaba knows this as it deals with services as well as goods. But when Mr Obama and other Americans have tried to “sell” deals such as TPP, they have often focused on industrial goods. This lends the rhetoric a backward-looking tone, given the declining role of manufacturing jobs. As a White House report points out, the US is already the biggest exporter of services in the world. Such exports have risen sevenfold in the past 34 years and the rise is likely to continue (although most voters know little about it).
The third lesson from Mr Ma is that it pays to talk about small businesses. While these do not currently represent much of the exporting sector (a Brookings paper recently noted that medium- sized companies account for just 11 per cent of export sales, while the share of small businesses is even less and about 60 per cent of America’s midsized companies do not export at all).
There is potential for considerable growth if it were made simpler for companies to sell overseas. Hence the appeal of Mr Ma’s pitch: when he talks about a future where American entrepreneurs of all stripes (including farmers) can seize the commercial dream, via cyberspace, it packs a rhetorical punch.
This vision has plenty of holes. For one thing, Washington is wrangling endlessly about issues that Mr Ma barely mentioned, such as intellectual property laws, and currency manipulation. For another, those new trade deals have yet to be approved. Even if the TPP is approved later this year, China is not one of the 12 nations that will participate. Trade obstacles remain widespread.
Even with those caveats, the key point is that a Chinese entrepreneur billionaire stood in New York and sounded more American than many modern US leaders in terms of his sunny optimism — and the potential of trade to be a force for good. It is a striking sign of how geopolitics is being reshaped every day, even as Washington keeps tying itself in knots about the trade debate.
